Festivals - Gerardmer 2021: The dark & the wicked will be screened

By Mulder, 23 january 2021

The Dark and the Wicked is a 2020 American horror film written and directed by Bryan Bertino. It stars Marin Ireland, Michael Abbott Jr. and Xander Berkeley. The film had its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival on August 28, 2020. It was released on November 6, 2020 in the United States distributed by RLJE Films.

Buried in the heart of rural isolation, there is a farm. In this farm, there is a house. In this house, there is an elderly man. This man is slowly dying. His now adult children, Louise (Marin Ireland) and Michael (Michael Abbott Jr.), have both put their lives on hold and have come home to be with him in his most difficult hours. The residence is filled with terrible energies. A palpable horror. Louise and Michael both feel it. At first, they try to ignore what their gut is suggesting, but soon, waking nightmares make this task more and more difficult. One strange event follows another. Something evil is taking over the home.

Writer and director Bryan Bertino knows what scares you, as anyone who has seen his modern classic pulverizing The Strangers (2008) can attest. He knows what scares you because he knows what scares him, and he creates works only from that point of view. One of the most disturbing films we've seen this year, The Dark and the wicked is a seriously terrifying work. Conceived, scripted and ultimately shot on Bertino's own family farm, it is a heart-wrenching interpretation of the grief and faith found in isolated despair - and the demons it can summon. It is told through the prism of an intimacy that will turn you upside down, from edge to edge. More precisely, it is a film about the truly occult forces of evil, interspersed with images that will sink into your nightmares. Marin Ireland and Michael Abbott Jr. are both phenomenal, and a frightening supporting performance by the great Xander Berkeley (Candyman) in the role of a rural priest struggling with his own dark shadows adds an extra layer to this tapestry of horrors.

Born in 1977 in Crowley, Texas, his first feature film, The Strangers, was a real commercial success and allowed him to found his own production company, Unbroken Pictures. Bryan Bertino produced his next horror films at Unbroken Pictures, as well as others such as February by Oz Perkins (2015), presented at the Gerardmer Film Festival 2016, and Strangers: Prey at Night by Johannes Roberts (2018). The Dark and the Wicked is his fourth film.

Synopsis :
Louise and Michael go to the family farm where they grew up, at the bedside of their dying father. Their mother, in the throes of dementia, is convinced that an outside force has crept into their lives. The disturbing incidents are multiplying and becoming more and more disturbing.

The Dark and the Wicked
Written and directed by Bryan Bertino
Produced by Bryan Bertino, Adrienne Biddle, Sonny Mallhi, Kevin Matusow
Starring Marin Ireland, Michael Abbott Jr., Xander Berkeley
Music by Tom Schraeder
Cinematography : Tristan Nyby
Edited by William Boodell, Zachary Weintraub
Production companies : Unbroken Pictures, The Traveling Picture Show Company, Inwood Road Films
Distributed by RLJE Films
Release date: August 28, 2020 (Fantasia), November 6, 2020 (United States)
Running time: 93 minutes

(Source : press release)