Eva Mendes has approximately two pretty big things going for her, and by that, I mean her mighty affordable asking price and her willingness to sign up for just about any project (What? What did you think I was going to say those two things were?). Well, she’s not bad on the eyes, either, but I have to think it takes more than just her caliber of looks to work as steadily as she does. It also helps that she has all of the advantages of being ethnic (being able to be a love interest for black and white actors, being considered exotic, um…good skin?) while having almost none of the disadvantages (that hard-to-shake accent that dogs the likes of Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz). The combination of all of that makes for a pretty steady career, and she’s been able to do romance, dramas, thrillers, and comedies alike. Now, it looks like it’s time for her first starring horror film.

I use the qualifier “starring” because she was a part of the almost entirely (and deservedly so) forgotten Urban Legends franchise, having appeared in part deux, Final Cut. But now, Eva’s starring in and co-executive producing a new, yet pretty old-sounding horror thriller called Curve for teen schlock magnate Neal Moritz, who also produced Final Cut. Here, Mendes plays a young woman traveling by herself who wisely takes an offroad detour in a remote area outside New York City. As bad luck would have it, this is the area where a psychopathic murderer happens to be killing time (and people) and he sets his sights on her. I can only hope that this movie was created when an intern read aloud the plot of Wrong Turn (or any of the gazillion other films with this same premise) off the back of the DVD, and Neal Moritz exclaimed “Genius!” and bought the pitch for mid-six figures.

I guess if you’re going to start producing films, horror is about as sure a bet as you can make, and you can get away with a reduced budget a lot better. But this throwback-y plot sounds mighty skimpy for an entire feature, so maybe this film will have an original twist or two to spice things up such as finding out that the killer is Chow Yun-Fat and dies at the end. And he also happens to be a ghost. And a supervillain. And he’s dreaming the entire film just before he dies. And as he does, he says “Stupid fucking white people.”