Yellowstone actress Kelly Reilly stars in a brand new gothic horror thriller titled The Cursed, and the movie now has its first trailer. The film takes place in the late nineteenth century following land baron Seamus Laurent’s (Alistair Petrie) brutal slaughter of a Roma clan, which unleashes “a curse on his family and village,” per a synopsis. In the following days, the townspeople are “plagued by nightmares,” Seamus’s son Edward goes missing, and a boy is found murdered.
While the local townspeople suspect a wild animal is the culprit behind all the strange happenings, a “visiting pathologist, John McBride (Boyd Holbrook), warns of a more sinister presence lurking in the woods.” Reilly plays Seamus’ wife, Isabelle Laurent, who finds herself facing more than just the mysterious creature of the night when McBride shows up. Additional cast members include Roxane Duran and Áine Rose Daly. The Cursed is written and directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sean Ellis (Cashback, Metro Manila), and was originally titled Eight for Silver. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020, and will have its U.S. theatrical debut on February 18th.
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In a previous statement shared by Deadline, Ellis commented on The Cursed making its debut its debut at the major film festival, expressing how excited he was for the big opportunity. “Sundance is always an incredible place to showcase your work. In the time that has followed that valuable experience, we took the opportunity to invigorate the film with an updated score by Lorne Balfe; we changed much of the CGI and decided to put back much of the original in-camera effects,” said Ellis. “We also elevated elements of the story that pay tribute to the incredible multitude of layers that live within the horror genre.”
Executives Mickey Liddell and Pete Shilaimo — from the film’s producing studio, LD Entertainment — also issued a statement on The Cursed. “We set out to make a genre film with an incredibly talented filmmaker. Sean Ellis has created a story that is so much more than that: it’s timely, scary as hell, and most importantly unique.” They added, “We are thrilled for people to finally see Sean’s striking vision on the big screen.” Over on Rotten Tomatoes, The Curse currently holds a score of 76% Fresh, with Hollywood Reporter critic David Rooney writing, “The film is more suspenseful than scary, higher on sustained atmosphere than well-rounded characters. But it moves along at a stately pace and remains involving.”
