Maddie Evans, known to House of the Dragon viewers as Dyana, is trading dragons for the Lancashire moors in Pendle 1612, a horror hybrid shot in documentary style, written and directed by twin filmmakers Liam Bashford and Kyle Bashford. Produced by Eleven Eleven Pictures, the film begins principal photography in late September on location around Pendle Hill.
The title comes from an actual historical horror: the 1612 Pendle witch trials, in which twelve people from the area were accused of murder by witchcraft and ten were ultimately hanged, one of the best documented witch trial cases in English history. Rather than restage the trials outright, the Bashfords are using that history as a haunting backdrop for a present day mystery. Evans plays Amy, one of three young women making a documentary about the disappearance of Amy’s older sister; the investigation, alongside co-stars Ella Moss (as Hannah) and Gemma Laurie (as Meg, known for Shetland), pulls the trio deeper into the land’s buried history than any of them bargained for.
“Growing up in Lancashire, the story of the Pendle Witches has always been around us,” Liam Bashford said in a statement announcing the project. “We didn’t want to recreate 1612. We wanted to ask what might still be there today.” It is a mission statement that puts Pendle 1612 alongside other recent horror using a documentary or found footage frame to reckon with real historical atrocity rather than simply dramatize it.
No release date, distributor, or additional cast has been announced, and reporting so far has come entirely from casting and production announcements rather than any released footage. Historical witch trials remain durable horror real estate, from The Witch to the ongoing stream of Salem set chillers, and a Lancashire set project built around genuinely undersung history has real potential to stand apart from that pack once cameras actually roll.
