‘The Shining’ Star Shelley Duvall Makes Long-Awaited Acting Return in NSFW Trailer

The Shining star Shelley Duvall has been away from acting for two decades. No, she has made her long-awaited return in the NSFW trailer for The Forest Hills, a new horror film. The film follows Rico (Chiko Mendez), a mentally and emotionally disturbed man who suffers head trauma while camping in the Catskill Mountains. He subsequently becomes tormented by terrible visions of werewolves. 

Duvall only appears briefly in the bloody new teaser, but her sharp delivery makes her a powerful force in the nearly three-minute clip. In The Forest Hills, Duvall plays Rico’s mother, who also serves as an inner voice, for the troubled man. The film also stars Edward Furlong and Dee Wallace, among others. The Forst Hills is written and directed by Scott Goldberg. Scott Hansen serves as producer, alongside Dreznick Goldberg Productions and Digital Thunderdome Studios. Goldberg is also serving as co-producer. Check out the full NSFW trailer below. At this time, The Forest Hills does not appear to have an announced release date.

Duvall is well-known for starring in films such as The Shining and Roxanne. In the ’80s and ’90s, she created and hosted a number of TV shows, including Faerie Tale Theatre and Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories. In a statement about Duvall’s casting for The Forest Hills, Goldberg said, “We are huge fans of The Shining and it’s honestly one of my favorite horror movies of all time, up there with John Carpenter’s Halloween and George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead with the dark tones they delivered in their movies, along with perfect scores and elements that make them my personal favorites. Shelley contributed to The Shining being an absolute masterpiece by giving her all, and performing in a way that really showcased the fear and horror of a mother in isolation.”

Duvall’s performance in The Shining has been one of the most heavily debated roles in the history of horror film, with modern audiences praising her for how much she brought to the story. It has also been said that director Stanley Kubrick was cruel to Duvall during filming. In 2021, she addressed her on-set experience, telling The Hollywood Reporter that she was forced to cry almost every day for the duration of the nearly three-month shoot. 

“After a while, your body rebels, “she said. “It says: ‘Stop doing this to me. I don’t want to cry every day.’ And sometimes just that thought alone would make me cry. To wake up on a Monday morning, so early, and realize that you had to cry all day because it was scheduled – I would just start crying.” When asked about the speculation of Kubrick mistreating her on purpose in order to get the performance he wanted out of her, Duvall said, “He’s got that streak in him. He definitely has that. But I think mostly because people have been that way to him at some time in the past.”