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William McGregor’s ‘Gwen’ is a Haunting, Dark Welsh Folk Tale

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Gwen

Writer/director William McGregor (His Dark Materials) takes viewers to the stark hills of Wales in Gwen, a dark folk tale built on dread.

It is the 19th century, and Gwen (Eleanor Worthington-Cox) lives with her mother Elen (Maxine Peake) and younger sister Mari (Joddie Innes) alone on a struggling farm. It seems the whole world is turning against her family as Elen succumbs to illness and a local mining company who wants their land successfully turns the local community against them.

Darkness creeps ever closer to the family and McGregor deftly captivates and works the emotions of his audience to keep them guessing if that darkness comes from humans or something even more insidious.

McGregor makes smart choices throughout the film. There is very little score to speak of, so we are left to the sounds of nature, and it isn’t long before creeping winds and crackling fires take on a sinister tone.

Worthington-Cox (The Enfield Haunting) is transcendent in the role of Gwen delivering a flawless performance that is tonally near-perfect throughout. The character is constantly pulled between childlike innocence, teenage stubbornness, and adult responsibilities, the last carrying with it a weighty burden as her mother becomes ill and she must try to keep the farm running on her own.

Elanor Worthington-Cox is stunning the title character in Gwen.

Likewise, Maxine Peake (Peterloo) radiates the quiet desperation of a mother trying to hold her family together. With the mining company constantly watching she cannot be seen as weak, no matter the circumstances, and we watch as she pricks her fingers in order to draw blood that she massage into her cheeks to give them a healthy glow and walking the great distance to attend church when she can barely stand.

Among the supporting cast, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith stands out as Doctor Wren, a man torn between his allegiances to the mining company and his oaths as a doctor when Gwen begs for medicine for her mother.

Unfortunately, other members of the supporting cast aren’t given much more to do than scowl and look threatening. While it works overall, at the very least the head of the mining company and perhaps the minister could have been given more development to underline why they do what they do.

And then there’s the Welsh countryside itself. There are times when the hills and countryside of sparsely populated filming location, Gwynned, seems to loom over the family and press in on them, underscoring their isolation.

Gwen was filmed in County Gwynned in Wales and it’s landscape becomes a character all its own.

As the elements come together, not only does McGregor manage to convey a nearly consuming sense of dread within his characters, but he pushes it beyond the screen onto his audience.

How can there be nothing to fear after all if we know that something or someone is moving inside the shadows and it will devour us if we allow it?

Gwen will release this Friday, August 16, 2019 in select theaters and video on demand, and it is definitely a film that fans of The Witch will want to see.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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