Bill Nighy walks into Alfonso Cuarón’s cult nightmare

Bill Nighy has joined “Ascension,” Apple TV’s upcoming psychological horror series inspired by Adam Nevill’s novel “Last Days.”

Caitríona Balfe leads the series as Rose, a documentary filmmaker and recently divorced mother who begins investigating a mysterious group called the Church of Ascension. What starts as a project about the cult becomes much more personal when Rose begins finding comfort in its teachings.

That is probably the point where everybody watching should start yelling at the screen.

Nighy will play Zac, a documentarian who hires Rose to work on the project. Alfonso Cuarón is co-writing the series with Carlos Cuarón, Natalie Erika James and Christian White. James and White are serving as showrunners, with James also directing.

Nevill’s “Last Days” is filthy territory for television horror. The novel follows a documentary filmmaker researching a notorious cult with a history of violence, occult ritual and deeply unpleasant supernatural consequences.

Nevill has already had two novels adapted for film, “The Ritual” and “No One Gets Out Alive,” and both understood that his work gets nastier when the characters are isolated long enough to doubt their own senses.

Nighy is also no stranger to horror. He played Viktor in the “Underworld” films, Shaun’s stepfather Philip in “Shaun of the Dead,” and Cardinal Lawrence in “The First Omen.” Seeing him play a documentary figure inside a cult story gives “Ascension” another good reason to stay on the radar.

Cuarón being involved adds a different flavor entirely. “Children of Men” already proved how good he is at building dread through space, movement and a world collapsing around people who have barely had time to process it.

Apple has not announced a release date.

Cult horror with Nevill, Nighy and Cuarón in the same room is enough information for now.