After a successful festival run, A71 Entertainment has announced that the sci-fi thriller Darken will have a theatrical run in Canada this month beginning on June 29th. In today's Horror Highlights, we also have Digital HD release details for Inheritance and a look at the poster for Terrortory 2.
Darken Canadian Release Details: Press Release: "Toronto, ON: A71 Entertainment is pleased to announce today that following premieres at festivals including Blood In The Snow Film Festival, Horror-On-Sea Film Festival, and Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival, DARKEN – award-winning horror director Audrey Cummings’ (Berkshire County) sophomore feature – is headed to theatres across Canada on June 29. Produced by Shaftesbury, DARKEN was named Best Science Fiction Feature at Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival, Best Fantasy Feature at Motor City Nightmares International Film Festival, and won four awards at Blood In The Snow Festival including Best Director and Best Cinematography.
An action-packed, female-led sci-fi thriller, the genre-busting film stars Bea Santos (“Murdoch Mysteries”, “World Away”) as Eve, a young woman who, following a chance encounter, finds herself thrust into a viciously violent otherworld where she must fight for her own survival.
In addition to Santos, DARKEN assembles an all-star genre cast including Oluniké Adeliyi (Descendent, “Deep Six”, “Workin’ Moms”), Ari Millen (“Orphan Black”, Rupture), Zoë Belkin (Carrie, “Degrassi: The Next Generation”), Christine Horne (“Murdoch Mysteries,” “Lost Girl”), Jon McLaren (“Heartland,” Race), Dmitry Chepovetsky (“Orphan Black,” “Killjoys,” “Murdoch Mysteries”), Zehra Leverman (X-Men: Apocalypse, X-Men: Days of Future Past), and Paul Amos (“Lost Girl,” “Captain Canuck”).
DARKEN is set in a bizarre, mysterious, and violent unknown world with danger and death around every corner. After a young woman is accosted by a dying warrior in the middle of the street, a bizarre incantation propels her into the realm of Darken – a violent prison-like world of labyrinthine rooms, interconnected with no apparent rhyme or reason and no way of escape. As she fights for survival within this brutal place, she finds allies who are rebelling against the rule of a self-appointed religious despot who demands allegiance to an all-powerful god called “Mother Darken.” Eve and her allies must fight with everything they have if they are to have any hope of surviving the horrors Darken has in store for them.
“This story transports you to another time and place,” comments Cummings. “It’s a parallel world created by ‘Mother Darken’ back in the dark ages, populated by people from many different eras. I felt immediately drawn in when I first read the script.”
Commenting further on making female-driven genre films Cummings adds, “Genre films have a huge female fan base that is looking for strong and clearly defined characters they can identify with and root for. They love action, energy, compelling stories, and high-stakes as well as really well-developed characters. They are a cool, demanding, smart and pretty kick ass audience to make movies for.”
Prior to the theatrical release earlier this year, producers Shaftesbury released an 11-part digital prequel series, Darken: Before the Dark on YouTube, taking audiences deep inside the fantastic otherworld of DARKEN.
“We were excited to experiment with providing the audience with multiple points of entry on a range of platforms to build a world around the film. With DARKEN, audiences can watch the digital series, connect and discuss on social, immerse themselves via the VR experience, see the film on the big screen, or pre-order it to re-watch at home. This multiplatform experience offers audiences a deeper connection with the story universe and characters,” said Jay Bennett, SVP, Creative & Innovation, Shaftesbury.
DARKEN is produced by Shaftesbury with the financial participation of Telefilm Canada (Canada Feature Film Fund), the OMDC Feature Film Fund, the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, and the Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit. The film is directed by Audrey Cummings, written by R.J. Lackie, and produced by Jay Bennett. Christina Jennings, Scott Garvie, and Svet Rouskov are executive producers; James Luscombe is consulting producer. The film will be distributed in Canada by A71 Entertainment Inc., and Breakthrough Entertainment internationally."
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Inheritance Digital HD Release Details: Press Release: "Los Angeles, CA - Portola Pictures has announced the June 15th Digital HD release of Tyler Savage's Inheritance. Savage directed from his own script, putting a chilling twist on the universal feeling of being trapped by your family history, for better or worse. Following the world premiere at Dances with Films, Inheritance has received high marks at festivals around the country. Dread Central raved, "Savage uses the dark essences of an even more gloomy past to highlight this modern-day ghost story."
Tyler Savage makes his feature film debut alongside executive producer Nicholas Gonda (Tree of Life), cinematographer Drew Daniels (Krisha/i>, It Comes At Night) and producers J.P. Castel (Krisha), Dash Hawkins (Party Crashers), and Chase Joliet (It Comes at Night), who also leads the cast. Inheritance will be available to rent or own on iTunes and Amazon Instant Video June 15th.
Joliet is joined onscreen by Sara Montez ("Pitch"), Tim Abell (Sniper: Special Ops), Kate Norby (The Devil's Rejects), Dale Dickey (Hell or High Water, "True Blood"), Krisha Fairchild (Krisha) and Drew Powell ("Gotham"). The film was shot on location along the California coast and LA-based indie pop band Mini Mansions provided the score.
Ryan Bowman has just inherited a $2.5 million beach house on the central California coast from his biological father, a man he's never known and thought long dead. Arriving in the charming town with his pregnant fiancée, Ryan's curiosity about his father soon leads him into an introspective investigation. As a looming family presence tightens its grip on him, Ryan pushes away his adoptive family and expectant fiancé. When he finally discovers the horrifying truth about his birth parents, he might be too late to stop himself from repeating a similar pattern..."
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Terrortory II Details & Poster: Coming out soon, the anthology horror movie Terrortory II will include an EC Comics-style segment written by horror author Ronald Malfi:
"The segment he wrote is called "The Fountain" and stars Stormi Maya ("Death Kiss"), Geoffrey Boggs, Ali Lukowski ("You're F@#Kn Dead!"), and Baltimore legend George Stover ("Nightbeast", "WNUF Halloween Special", one hundred others).
The film is a sequel to the Amazon Prime Video Star "Terrortory", one of the top 100 movies on all of Amazon in October of 2016. It stars Richard Cutting ("House of Cards"), Joe Cardamone ("Ice Cold Killers"), Chris O'Brocki ("Fear of Clowns 2"), M.T. Smith ("Terrortory"), Frederick Cowie ("Plan 9"), Philip Levine ("Fear of Clowns 2"), Neil Conway ("Bounty"), and Josh Davidson ("Maladjusted")."
Tamika hails from North Beach, Maryland, a tiny town inches from the Chesapeake Bay.She knew she wanted to be an actor after reciting a soliloquy by Sojourner Truth in front of her entire fifth grade class. Since then, she's appeared in over 20 film and television projects. In addition to acting, Tamika is the Indie Spotlight manager for Daily Dead, where she brings readers news on independent horror projects every weekend.
The first horror film Tamika watched was Child's Play. Being eight years old at the time, she remembers being so scared when Chucky came to life that she projectile vomited. It's tough for her to choose only one movie as her favorite horror film, so she picked two: Nosferatu and The Stepford Wives (1975).
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