Exclusives
Exclusive ‘Der Samurai’ Clip Yields a Sword
Part of last year’s Tribeca Film Festival line up was Till Kleinert’s German horror Der Samurai, which Patrick Cooper reviewed and called a violent allegory, while Daniel Baldwin said cuts a strange, but intriguing path.
Now, almost a year after its premiere, we have the first clip to celebrate its U.S. release on Blu-ray and DVD June 9th from Artsploitation.
“A samurai-wielding figure wearing a white dress lurks menacingly in the forest, waiting to descend upon an unsuspecting village in the muddy backwaters of rural East Germany. As heads roll with each stroke of his sword. Dutiful, straight-laced cop Jakob becomes increasingly powerless to resist the draw of the Samurai’s feral otherness. The two enter into a bizarre folie à deux as Jakob is forced to confront his own carnal impulses that he has long sought to repress.”
A bedtime lullaby soothes an unsettling newborn in our exclusive clip from Nightborn, from Hatching filmmaker Hanna Bergholm.
The dark fable makes its debut on Shudder on July 31.
Seidi Haarla (Compartment No. 6) and Rupert Grint (Knock at the Cabin, “Servant”) star as new parents in Nightborn, and this exclusive clip highlights mom’s harrowing transition into motherhood.
In Nightborn, “With dreams of starting a perfect family, Saga and her British husband Jon move to the isolated house where she spent much of her childhood, deep in the Finnish forest. But as soon as their baby is born, despite the reassurance of all around her, Saga knows there’s something terribly wrong with her son. As their marriage starts to crack, Jon struggles to support his wife, but only Saga suspects the terrible truth about her newborn.”
Pamela Tola, Pirkko Saisio, Rebecca Lacey and John Thomson also star.
Bergholm teased of her maternal horror movie, “In Nordic countries, there’s a long-standing mythology of trolls living in the forests. In ancient times, people truly believed that trolls inhabited the woods and had a kind of control over nature. And in Nightborn, the forest reflects Saga’s emotions and the animalistic, primitive physical side of humankind.”
“Hanna Bergholm’s audacious sophomore follow up to Hatching delivers tension and shocking moments surrounding parenthood and self discovery — with a touch of humor,” said Emily Gotto, senior vice president of acquisitions and production at Shudder. “We are thrilled to share Nightborn with audiences.”