SHUDDER ANNOUNCES THE RELEASE OF THREE NEW FILMS

​Shudder Announces Acquisition, Trailer, and Premiere Date for Mary Shelley Gothic Drama
‘A NIGHTMARE WAKES’

Stunning Feature Debut by Nora Unkel Is a Bold Retelling of Shelley’s Tempestuous Relationship with Poet Percy Shelley and the Creation of Her Influential Literary Masterpiece, ‘Frankenstein’


COMING TO SHUDDER FEBRUARY 4, 2021

AMC Networks’ horror streaming platform Shudder today announced the acquisition of A NIGHTMARE WAKES from writer/director Nora Unkel. The sweeping psychological thriller based on Mary Shelley’s writing of Frankenstein is steeped in accurate period details but told with a modern perspective. It will debut on Shudder on February 4th, days after the 170th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s death on February 1st, 1851.



Synopsis: While composing her famous novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley descends into an opium-fueled fever dream while carrying on a torrid love affair with Percy Shelley. As she writes, the characters of her novel come to life and begin to plague her relationship with Percy. Before long, she must choose between true love and her literary masterpiece.

An unsettlingly intimate portrayal of a brilliant artist at her most troubled, A NIGHTMARE WAKES traces the tortured birth of a timeless masterwork and the rightful ascension of its creator to stand alongside her creation.

“Mary Shelley helped create two of the most popular genres in cinema, horror and science fiction. Yet her story has too often fallen beneath the shadow of the iconic monster she created. With A NIGHTMARE WAKES, Nora Unkel gives us an opportunity to see Mary in a new light, and to appreciate her accomplishments anew,” said Craig Engler, General Manager of Shudder.

“With her Creature and Creator, Mary Shelley created science fiction as an entire genre and transfixed 1800s Europe in ways never thought possible. Shelley’s struggle with love, loss, abandonment by society and family, and her own sanity, had yet to be captured fully on-screen. She lived a colorful life of love, drugs, and freedom alongside some of the most celebrated artists of her day. With A NIGHTMARE WAKES, I hope to leave Shudder members enraptured by Shelley’s chilling, intimate, and dark narrative, inspired by how much her story is, in fact, our own,” said Nora Unkel.

Starring Alix Wilton Regan (THE WIFE), Giullian Yao Gioiello (Scream: The TV Series, Marvel’s Iron Fist), Philippe Bowgen (THE MICK), as well as Lee Garrett, Claire Glassford, and Shannon Spangler. While the filmmakers took great pains to be as historically accurate as possible in the movie’s lighting and design, they chose to cast racially diverse actors and to produce A NIGHTMARE WAKES with a majority female production crew.

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Kimo Stamboel’s ‘THE QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC’ Chilling retelling of the cult classic Indonesian horror written by award-winning filmmaker Joko Anwar Coming exclusively to Shudder January 28th

“Scary, skin-crawling fun… a gnarly supernatural chiller that will get under your skin”
Nerdist

The sins of the past come back with a vengeance in this new film from two of Indonesia’s modern masters of horror, director Kimo Stamboel (HEADSHOT) and writer Joko Anwar (SATAN’S SLAVES, IMPETIGORE).

A family travels to the distant, rural orphanage where the father was raised to pay their respects to the facility’s gravely ill director. But his and his best friends’ homecoming turns into a terrifying supernatural ordeal that threatens their and their families’ lives: someone is using dark magic to avenge evil deeds, long-buried but not forgotten. Stamboel’s film is a reimagining of the 1981 Indonesian horror classic of the same name.
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​Streaming exclusively on Shudder January 28th
U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand
(and via the Shudder offering within the AMC+ bundle where available)


The film marks the sophomore solo feature for Kimo Stamboel following his 2019 celebrated video game adaptation film DREADOUT, and follows his collaborated work with director Timo Tjahjanto — together known as the directing duo The Mo Brothers, and their breakout hits MACABRE and KILLERS. Drawn from a script penned by Joko Anwar, whose own most recent feature, the 2019 Sundance selection IMPETIGORE, has been named Indonesia’s entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards.

An exciting new addition to the ranks of modern Indonesian horror and a disturbingly dark reboot of the 1981 witchcraft film by the same name, THE QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC promises visceral body horror, tormented folklore, and an inescapable past.

THE QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC is directed by Kimo Stamboel and written by Joko Anwar. Starring Ario Bayu (IMPETIGORE), Hannah Al Rashid (V/H/S/2, THE NIGHT COMES FOR US), Adhisty Zara (TWO BLUE STRIPES), and Muzakki Ramdhan.

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CHRISTOPHER SMITH’S NEW CHILLER THE BANISHING HITS
UK CINEMAS AND DIGITAL PLATFORMS MARCH 26TH

JESSICA BROWN FINDLAY CONFRONTS HER DEMONS IN CHRISTOPHER SMITH’S NEW SUPERNATURAL HORROR

“One of the best haunted house films we've seen for a while” - Starburst


The Shining meets Downton Abbey in the chilling new ghost story

THE BANISHING, starring Jessica Brown Findlay (Brave New World, Harlots) and directed by genre master Christopher Smith (Black Death, Severance, Triangle). THE BANISHING will be released in cinemas and on digital platforms March 26th 2021, courtesy of AMC Networks’ Shudder, in partnership with Vertigo Releasing.

THE BANISHING has a terrific cast, including Downton Abbey’s Brown Findlay as a young woman uncovering dark secrets in her new home; Sean Harris (Red Riding, Mission: Impossible) as ghost hunter Harry Price; and John Lynch (Isolation) as a sinister ‘man of God’. Smith expertly delivers a handsomely mounted period mystery, based around the spooky real life Borley Rectory tale, that steadily builds to a satisfying climax, twanging the nerves along the way, with creepy dolls, shadowy figures, religious mania and the terror of madness. A story of isolation and a family strained to breaking point, THE BANISHING is the perfect lockdown-era chiller for fans of spine-tinglers like The Others and Rebecca.

Synopsis: 1930s, England. Linus, his wife Marianne and their daughter Adelaide move into town, where Linus has been posted as the new reverend. He’s been tasked by the Church to renew the villagers’ faith, which has been lost after the disappearance of the previous reverend’s family, who lived in the very same mysterious manor where Linus and his family have settled into. Soon after their arrival, strange events start to occur: ghostly voices, dark figures dressed as monks, mysterious totems, and Adelaide’s behavior becoming stranger by the day. It soon becomes clear that a malicious entity seeks to possess Adelaide and that the Church is hiding a terrible secret…

THE BANISHING will be released in cinemas and on digital platforms
March 26th 2021

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