Movies
Richard Brake Will Lead a Doomsday Cult in ‘Ascendant’
Genre favorite Richard Brake (Barbarian, Mandy) will star as a megalomaniac cult leader in Ascendant.
Deadline reports that Brake plays a charismatic madman who leads a doomsday cult, with his demonstrations of his claimed mystic powers ranging from telekinetically lighting candles to setting human sacrifices on fire.
KateLynn E. Newberry (Juror #2) will co-star as a woman who infiltrates the cult in search of her missing sister.
“Richard [Brake] makes Jim Jones blush with this masterful and absolutely terrifying turn as a megalomaniac cult leader,” said director Phil Blattenberger, referring to the instigator of the 1978 Jonestown massacre.
Blattenberger wrote the screenplay in Ukraine during last year’s Russian air raids in 2025, which he attempted to channel the “unwavering tension into the fabric of story.”
The ensemble cast also includes Kat Conner Sterling (Five Nights at Freddy’s), Chase Gutzmore, Corinne Britti (Saturday Night), Paul de Havilland, Jacob Keohane (Halloween Kills), and Kristyna Kucirkova.
Blattenberger produces with cinematographer/editor Daniel Troyer, Jacob Keohane and Michael Alexander. Executive Producers include de Havilland, Dustin Kincaid, John Abeyta, Serica Abeyta, Michael Sean Decker, Nathan Thomas, Frederic Poag, and Kevin Overton.
Uncharted Entertainment will launch sales on Ascendant at the European Film Market in Berlin this week.
KateLynn E. Newberry in ‘Juror #2’
Jennifer Holland (“Peacemaker”) and Dave Annable (“Lioness”) will lead the cast of upcoming supernatural Civil War thriller Brine, Deadline reports this afternoon.
B.J. Golnick (“Hunting Hitler”) will be directing Brine.
Brine follows a family of Confederate deserters who escape the Union bombardment of Fort Pulaski with a cache of stolen gold and disappear into the Georgia marshlands.
When they take refuge in a remote plantation house, what first appears to be salvation slowly reveals itself as part of something ancient, predatory and impossible to escape.
Jonah Wharton (Lioness), Sissy Sheridan (Chicken Girls), and Grayson Lay (Outer Banks) also star. The screenplay was written by B.J. Golnick and Jeremy Miller.
“Brine is a story about survival, but it is also a story about inheritance…The violence we pass down, the myths we create to justify it, and the cost of trying to break free,” Golnick previews.
“We intend for the film to feel intimate, historically grounded and deeply unnerving, as if the supernatural elements weren’t invented, but unearthed from the marsh itself.”
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