Lou Diamond Phillips Perfectly Cast as Serial Killer Richard Ramirez in New Film

Yesterday the geek world rejoiced at the perfect casting of former The Walking Dead star Jon Bernthal as The Punisher in Daredevil Season 2, but here is some even more perfect casting for you: Lou Diamond Phillips is set to play notorious Los Angeles serial killer Richard Ramirez in a new dramatic thriller. It is seriously the role he was meant to play. Just look at the two of them in the photo above! Come on!

This is, of course, not to say that Phillips gives off any icky murderer vibes — he just looks the part, is all. Variety reports that the actor, who has often been relegated to B-movie roles over the last couple of decades, will portray Ramirez in a new film written and directed by Megan Griffiths.

Ramirez described himself as a committed satanist, and was convicted of 13 heinous murders in 1985. From 1984 to 1985, Ramirez terrorized Los Angeles and San Francisco with a string of home invasions, burglaries, sexual assaults and murders. He was given the moniker the “Night Stalker” until he was apprehended and sentenced to prison in 1985. Ramirez died in prison in 2013 due to complications from lymphoma.

Phillips stars in the drama series Longmire, and appears next in Chilean miner drama The 33, alongside Antonio Banderas. With the Night Stalker movie on the horizon, it seems like we may be ready to take Phillips seriously again.

Griffiths, who is writing and directing the Ramirez film, previously directed Lucky Them, starring Toni Collette and Johnny Depp, and the acclaimed drama thriller Eden, starring Jamie Chung and Beau Bridges — the latter won the narrative Audience Award at SXSW in 2012, and earned Griffiths the Emergent Female Director Award.