LONDON — The producers who turned a lone radio tower into one of recent horror's purest endurance tests are climbing higher. "Invertigo," a survival thriller that strands its characters atop a malfunctioning rollercoaster, has entered production with Inde Navarrette leading and Matthias Hoene directing.

The setup is economical and merciless: a group of reckless teens convince a young park worker to sneak them onto a brand-new coaster before its debut. A system failure leaves them suspended hundreds of feet in the air, where the physical ordeal gives way to something messier — buried traumas and hidden tensions surfacing under pressure.

Inde Navarrette in Invertigo. Image: Capstone Pictures.
Inde Navarrette in Invertigo. Image: Capstone Pictures.

"Setting the story high above the ground allowed us to push the tension to an extreme, but it's the emotional pressure between these characters that truly drives the film," Hoene ("Cockneys vs Zombies") said of the project — a thesis that aligns the film with its "Fall" lineage, where confinement and altitude do the work a monster usually would. Tea Shop's James Harris and Mark Lane produce, with Capstone Pictures' Christian Mercuri.

Inde Navarrette, who leads Invertigo.
Inde Navarrette, who leads Invertigo.

The screenplay comes from Kathy Charles and Billy O'Brien ("I Am Not a Serial Killer"), with Peter Matjasko serving as cinematographer. For Navarrette, an "Obsession" and "Superman & Lois" alum, it is a third outing with Capstone and another lead role in a genre that has embraced her.

Production is spread across Thailand, the United States and the United Kingdom, with Capstone steering worldwide sales out of the European Film Market. No distributor or release date has been announced — but as a contained, single-location nerve-shredder with proven producers, "Invertigo" arrives with a clear idea of the fear it wants to sell.