Published at 8:32 AM on June 3, 2008

By Michael Saba

Elizabeth Berkley joins S. Darko, creepy rabbit still MIA

Production recently began in Utah on the contentious sequel to 2001's Donnie Darko, shrewdly titled S. Darko after Donnie's little sister Samantha. Although the film remains Jake Gyllenhaal-less, director Chris Fisher and producer Ash R. Shah just revealed the addition of Elizabeth Berkley to the cast. Berkley cut her teeth as Jessie on Saved By The Bell before taking on a smattering of TV and movie roles, most recently Julia Winston on CSI: Miami.

Berkley is cast as a speed junkie who trades in her love of uppers for Jesus, and a risqué relationship with her pastor. Let's hope she delivers some fiery moralizations convincingly enough to dispel memories of her pole-dancing escapades in Showgirls.

S. Darko picks up seven years after the events of the first. Samantha, in dealing with her now-broken family, skips town with her best friend (Step Up 2: The Streets starlet Briana Evigan) in pursuit of freaky visions, meteorites and rabbits, and other hallucinations on a road trip to L.A. Hunter S. Thompson would doubtlessly approve of.

Yet to be unveiled are the extreme existential angst, time-travel, and sinister fur-suited harbingers of the apocalypse that made the first movie a cult standard for brooding adolescents everywhere.

Related links:

DonnieDarko.com
Donnie Darko on IMDb
Feature: Catching Up With… Richard Kelly

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