Movies
‘Psychonaut’ Trailer – Fiona Dourif Stars in Stylized Sci-Fi Horror
Go out of your mind with the trailer for Psychonaut, courtesy of Variety.
Chucky franchise veteran Fiona Dourif stars in the stylized sci-fi horror thriller with Julia Batelaan, Yasmin Blake, and Lloydd Hamwijk.
The indie film centers on Max, a young woman, who – enabled by a mysterious futuristic machine – dives inside the mind of her dying girlfriend, trying to find the essential memory that could save her life, all the while being hunted by a man they presumed to be dead.
Thijs Meuwese (Molly) writes and directs in addition to producing alongside Monne Tuinhout and David Grover.
“Psychonaut is a trippy microbudget drama with elements of science fiction and horror in the same vein as movies like Pi, Following, Primer, and The Lighthouse,” said Meuwese. “Designed from the ground up to blur the boundaries between reality, dream and memory, Psychonaut is a gritty dive into human subconsciousness and the formative moments of our lives.”
The Dutch Angle Project, Falcon Grove Productions, Branded Cinema, and Get Off the Road are behind the film.
Daniel Kurland wrote in his review out of the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival ,”Psychonaut deserves credit for shooting for the moon, but its lofty ambitions cause the film to fall short and end up out of orbit.”
Psychonaut will be released in the U.S. this year from Studio Dom, while Fizz-e-Motion will represent the project for international sales at the European Film Market in Berlin next month.
It’s been eight years since Ari Aster came onto the scene and helped usher in a new wave of horror with Hereditary, one of the rare horror movies from the past ten years that still seems to come up in conversation every single week. And it’s back in the conversation this week, with Ari Aster revealing at an event that he’s already written a prequel to Hereditary!
Ari Aster was on hand at the American Cinematheque for Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair last week, a Los Angeles festival that screened all of Aster’s movies to date. The website Gold Derby reports that Aster revealed the Hereditary prequel script during a Q&A at the event, and you can watch the full Q&A conversation below for confirmation on the website’s report.
“I wrote a prequel to this,” Aster told the crowd, referring to Hereditary. “It never feels like the right time to do it. It’s a prequel, not a sequel so I don’t know where this goes.”
Would a potential Hereditary prequel dig deeper into the mythology of demon king Paimon? Unfortunately, Aster provides no further details on his prequel approach at this time.
Aster said of Hereditary during the same Q&A, “I was just trying to make a really good horror movie.” I think most horror fans would agree that he more than accomplished that goal, and the past eight years have proven that Hereditary is an enduring classic of its generation.
We celebrated the fifth anniversary of Hereditary here on BD back in 2023.
Ron Breton wrote, “Hereditary offers a similar emotional resonance to this new generation of horror – my generation of horror– as movie-goers in the seventies when they first saw Exorcist. Much like Aster’s film, we see the incomprehensible evil wear the face of a young girl; the victim of a raw deal she had no say in, as it tears a family to its core. Sure, both films offer so many terrifying visuals that can make the hair stand up on anyone’s neck – but it also depicts intense relationships and emotions that are tangible. Real. Familiar.”
“In that familiarity lies the uncanny, ready to rear its ugly head and force us to confront thoughts and horrors laying dormant and clawing at our psyche,” Breton continued his 5th anniversary celebration of Hereditary. “And it doesn’t matter if it’s been five or fifty years. These horrors are always there, as we become pawns in its horrible, hopeless machine.”
Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Ann Dowd, and Milly Shapiro star in Hereditary. In the film, “A grieving family is haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences.”
That’s putting it mildly, eh?!
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