By MICHAEL GINGOLD
After its world premiere at last month’s Fantasia International Film Festival was greeted with strong reviews, it’s headed for release next month.
Epic Pictures will bring THE CURSE OF AUDREY EARNSHAW to select U.S. theaters October 2 and VOD/digital October 6, with Blu-ray release to follow. Thomas Robert Lee wrote and directed the film, with George Mihalka, director of the original MY BLOODY VALENTINE, as one of the executive producers. Catherine Walker (A DARK SONG), Jessica Reynolds, Jared Abrahamson, Hannah Emily Anderson, Sean McGinley, Don McKellar and Geraldine O’Rawe star; the synopsis: “Set against the autumnal palette of harvest season in 1973, THE CURSE OF AUDREY EARNSHAW explores the disturbed bond between Audrey [Reynolds], an enigmatic young woman, and Agatha [Walker], her domineering ‘mother,’ who live secretly as occultists on the outskirts of a remote Protestant village. As the community is besieged by a pestilence of unknown origin, children, fields, and livestock begin to die–yet the Earnshaw farm remains strangely unaffected. As mass hysteria sets in the village, the townsfolk commence accusations against Audrey and Agatha of witchcraft.”
“I wanted to tell a story about legacy, and to specifically explore it within the context of a folk horror narrative,” Lee says. “The community grows increasingly desperate as their given circumstances grow dire. In reality, the pandemic appears to have amplified hatred and xenophobia, or at least the voices of those spewing hate speech. Obviously there is a world of difference between my screenplay and the very real ramifications of the pandemic, but the similarities, however surface-level they may be, have certainly been on my mind these past months.”
See our review of THE CURSE OF AUDREY EARNSHAW in RUE MORGUE #196, now on sale.
