Charisma Carpenter

Red Sparrow flies with ’Vivid’

Psychological horror stars Charisma Carpenter

LONDON — Fledgling U.K. production company Red Sparrow has announced its first project, “Vivid,” a $1.2 million budgeted psychological horror set in the English countryside.

The pic will star Brit thesp Ricci Harnett (“Rise of the Footsoldier”) and San Diego Chargers’ cheerleader-turned-actress Charisma Carpenter, who starred in TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angels.”

Justin Hawkins, former outrageous frontman of The Darkness who is perhaps known best for his revealing jumpsuits, will also star in the Reg Traviss (“Joy Division”) film, which is produced by Red Sparrow principal Patrick Fischer and fully financed via private equity.

The pic about a New York novelist (Carpenter) who relocates to rural England, only to be rejected by the mistrustful locals and plagued by horrific visions of a massacre at her country manor, will film in London and Somerset.

Red Sparrow was formed in November 2007 by ambitious twentysomethings Fischer, James Harris and Kate Glover with the intention of shaking up the U.K. low-budget horror genre scene. Fischer, who produced Mike Figgis’ “Love Live Long,” and Harris previously worked at Gum Ball 3000 Films.

Other Red Sparrow projects in development and soon to fly, according to Fischer, include “Bone Orchard,” a Western with Chinese vampires, which John Landis is attached to helm (Variety, Nov. 6, 2008), and youth-orientated horror “Cockneys versus Zombies.”