By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Bryan Bertino has a truly unsettling saga of a family’s descent debuting at the Canadian festival, and it now has a general release date as well.
Written and directed by Bertino, THE DARK AND THE WICKED screens tomorrow night as part of the on-line Fantasia fest, and arrives in theaters and on VOD/digital platforms November 6 from RLJE Films and Shudder. Marin Ireland, Michael Abbott Jr., Julie Oliver-Touchstone, Lynn Andrews, Tom Nowicki, Michael Zagst and Xander Berkeley (CANDYMAN) star; the synopsis: “On a secluded farm, a man is slowly dying. Bedridden and fighting through his final breaths, his wife is slowly succumbing to overwhelming grief. To help their mother and say goodbye to their father, siblings Louise [Ireland] and Michael [Abbott] return to their family farm. It doesn’t take long for them to see that something’s wrong with mom, though–something more than her heavy sorrow. Gradually, as their own grief mounts, Louise and Michael begin suffering from a darkness similar to their mother’s, marked by waking nightmares and a growing sense that something evil is taking over their family.”