Emily Carey (House of the Dragon), Claes Bang (The Square) and Suki Waterhouse (Seance) have joined the psychological thriller Walk With Me from director Johnny Blair (River) and companies HanWay Films and Silver Reel, according to Deadline. Production will be able to commence outside of the SAG-AFTRA strike due to its European cast and co-production.
Walk With Me follows Carey as a teenaged girl who is “plagued by a nightmarish creature from Celtic mythology.” The official synopsis reads:
Teenager Ellie (Carey) struggles to connect with her emotionally distant father Simon (Bang) who has raised her alone since her mother died in childbirth. When he announces their move to a remote rural cottage, to live with his new younger girlfriend Fiona (Waterhouse), Ellie is filled with anxiety. Almost as soon as they arrive, Ellie sees a version of her father that she doesn’t recognise – he’s playful and loving in his interactions with Fiona and it devastates her, reinforcing everything she fears about herself.
Unsettled, Ellie is plagued by recurring visions of a terrifying creature, which her new local friend identifies as the Washerwoman – a figure from Celtic mythology, descended from women who die in childbirth. According to the legend, the creature appears to those who are about to die themselves. Ellie is increasingly certain that Fiona intends to murder her, the emotional gulf with her father only growing as she realises Fiona is pregnant. As her reality becomes a nightmare, Ellie is sent down a violent path, one that will overturn all of our preconceptions and ask what lengths we would go to in order to win back the ones we love.
Blair will direct from a script written by Benjamin Farry (Cosmos Within Us) with Evelin Van Rei as the Director of Photography and KM Effect’s Kristyan Mallett as the makeup and design artist for the creature. Silver Reel’s Jona Thompson and Jimmy Campbell-Smith are co-producing with Alexander Jooss and Florian Dargel as executive producers.
“Walk With Me brilliantly exploits, twists and turns all the emotional upheaval and neurosis triggered by a new stepmother figure in a teenage girl’s life, heightened by the darkness of a scary mythological creature. We are delighted to be working with our talented friends at Silver Reel on Jonny Blair’s psychological thriller debut!” said Hanway CEO Gabrielle Stewart.
“From the moment we read Walk With Me, we were immediately captured by the combination of a nerve-racking and strikingly original story, with beautifully realistic, complex characters,” Silver Reel commented. “It was a real win to attach young talent like Jonny to bring the script to life. The world of our story is one he relates to so closely, and has already proven his ability to recreate it on screen in gripping, viscerally emotive ways. That world-class talent of the likes of Claes, Suki and Emily have attached to the film is a powerful show of faith in Ben’s script and Jonny’s directorial vision for it.”
Walk With Me will begin production in early 2024.
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