A Sundance debut for a film is a dream come true for many filmmakers. There aren’t very many stages bigger than Sundance to introduce a feature and hopefully earn acclaim that can help carry your film to big things in the months to come. But sometimes, it doesn’t necessarily work out as you might hope for, which is the case for the horror film, “The Cursed.”
READ MORE: ‘Eight For Silver’: A Promising Gothic Horror Premise Slowly Unravels [Sundance Review]
As seen in the new trailer for “The Cursed,” Sean Ellis’ horror film has a great cast, led by Boyd Holbrook and Kelly Reilly. The film has an interesting premise about a late-19th century village being targeted by some sort of monster-ish creature. But when it debuted at Sundance last year, people weren’t overjoyed with what was shown. In our review of the film (when it was titled “Eight for Silver”) from last year’s Sundance, we said, “It’s a great-looking movie, with a fine cast (Reilly is particularly good) and a workable premise. The raw materials were clearly in place. Too bad they never came together.”
We weren’t the only ones with mixed reviews. Even the filmmaker understood there were problems. And the director explained everything that has been changed to help improve the film, now retitled “The Cursed.”
“Sundance is always an incredible place to showcase your work,” said Ellis. “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. We also elevated elements of the story that pay tribute to the incredible multitude of layers that live within the horror genre.”
So, with “The Cursed” arriving in theaters on February 18, more than a year after it debuted at Sundance, we’ll just have to wait and see if the work that has been done has resulted in a much better film.