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In his latest video, Kevin sits down for an exclusive interview with director Thordur Palsson to talk about his feature debut movie The Damned.

A 19th-century widow has to make an impossible choice when, during an especially cruel winter, a foreign ship sinks off the coast of her Icelandic fishing village.

The Damned is currently (still) in UK cinemas, courtesy of Vertical Entertainment. You can also check out Kev’s video review of the film right here.

A brand new theatrical release puts a unique twist on the classic haunted house movie, Richard Dreyfuss returns to the shark attack sub-genre, and one of the late Tony Todd’s final horror movies gets a posthumous release. And that’s just the beginning of this week’s new arrivals.

Here’s all the new horror that released January 20 – January 24, 2025!

For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.

Horror legend Tony Todd leaves behind a handful of roles in horror movies not yet released, and one of the first of his final roles comes courtesy of Werewolf Game, now available on VOD.

In Werewolf Game, “Twelve strangers are kidnapped and forced to play Werewolf Game, to the death. A thrilling feature film based on the iconic party game.”

Sunstrike Pictures tells Bd, “We have a huge influence of John Carpenter and horror manga, to create a...

Directed by Thordur Palsson, The Damned is an Irish horror drama that unfolds in the 19th century at an isolated fishing post. The cinematography, the characterization, as well as the suspenseful build-up, deserve appreciation, and the ambiguous ending leaves room for speculation. Eva, a young widow, owned a fish station, and after her husband’s death, she was responsible for running the place. In the cold, harsh winter, when the fishermen gathered at her post, she took it upon herself to ensure the men did not suffer. Her opinion contradicted Ragnar’s, the helmsman, who believed the men should only focus on the catch; after all, they had agreed to live in the brutal cold for the sake of earning some extra money. The catch was not impressive that year, but for Eva, as long as the fishermen were alive and well, she was content. Things soon took a dramatic...

Thordur Palsson’s The Damned, a harrowing and atmospheric horror film set in 19th-century Iceland, has finally arrived for digital streaming. Starring Odessa Young, the film explores themes of survival, guilt, and the supernatural, making it a must-watch for horror enthusiasts. If you’re looking for where to watch or stream The Damned, here’s everything you need to know.

What is The Damned About?

Set during a particularly cruel winter, The Damned follows Eva (Odessa Young), a widow tasked with leading her isolated fishing community after a devastating shipwreck. With their food supplies nearly exhausted, Eva and her crew face an impossible choice: attempt to rescue the shipwrecked survivors or ensure their own survival through the harsh season.

As the community grapples with the consequences of their decision, guilt begins to take hold, and a growing sense of dread consumes the inhabitants. Believing they are being punished for their choices,...

Thordur Palsson’s “The Damned” is not the only 2024 film with that title. There is also Roberto Minervini’s war drama, set in 1862, which premiered at Cannes. This article is not about that brooding drama. Instead, it is about Palsson’s horror film that stars Odessa Young and Joe Cole in the central roles. It follows a young widow (played by Young) trying to run a fishing outpost in the Arctic bay. While trying to survive through a brutally cold winter in an isolated piece of land, she and a group of fishers start to lose their sanity as they are surrounded by the ghosts of their past misdeeds and regrets.

Spoilers Ahead

The Damned (2024 Palsson film) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

“The Damned” is an English horror film directed by Thordur Palsson based on Jamie Hannigan’s screenplay. It follows the hardships faced by the inhabitants of a fishing outpost in the freezing,...

2025 had a strong start with an interesting variety of movies released in theaters, and these, along with some of the biggest hits from the final weeks of 2024, are now in theaters. 2024 saw some big hits on the big screen from different genres and was an overall successful year for the film industry, with movies like the comedy The Fall Guy, the drama Challengers, horror with Late Night With The Devil and Longlegs, the sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and the long-awaited Gladiator II.

The first days of January brought the horror movie The Damned, a one-of-a-kind musical biographical movie with Better Man, and the sequel Den of Thieves 2: Pantera. Now joining them and more is a new version of a horror classic directed by Leigh Whannell and a buddy movie starring Keke Palmer and Sza.

Related 30 Best Movies On Netflix Right Now (January 2025)

From Godzilla Minus One to Under Paris and The Gentlemen,...

January Box Office: Bad Boys For Life Holds 2nd Biggest Opening Weekend In North America( Photo Credit – YouTube )

January is the first month of the year, and it brings new hope for the upcoming days. People stay immersed in the New Year’s celebrations, and they are incomplete without movies. Several movies have come out in January over the years, and today, we are here to rank the top 5 biggest opening weekends in North America in January. Will Smith gloates at #2 owing to his film Bad Boys for Life. Scroll below for the deets.

Bad Boys for Life was released in 2020 and was the sequel to Bad Boys II, which came out almost two decades back in 2003. It was the first film in the franchise which was not directed by Michael Bay. The movie reportedly became the third-highest-grossing of the year. Besides that, Kung Fu Panda 3 is also one...

The Damned (1969), followed by Death in Venice (1971) and Ludwig (1973), is a historical drama film by Luchino Visconti and the first installment of the aforementioned German trilogy. Set in the backdrop of Hitler’s rise to power, the film portrays the steady disintegration of the affluent Essenbeck family due to the actions of one Hauptsturmführer Aschenbach, a highly influential and manipulative leader of the Schutzstaffel.

Events in the film are driven by real-life incidents that were instrumental to the transformation of the Weimar Republic (Hitler as Chancellor) to Nazi Germany (Hitler as Führer). These include the Reichstag fire and the Röhm purge, among others.

A Milanese nobleman himself, Visconti (officially The Count of Lonate Pozzolo) luxuriates in the decay of German nobility due to Nazi interference and the intrinsic decadence of the members of the Essenbeck family. As a result, The Damned presents itself as a detailed study of instability, sexual transgression,...

The Damned has been made to a high standard. The film is extremely well-crafted; the cast, the period setting, and the eerie and isolated fishing village where the story plays out all help to create a tense and believable story as a group of fisherman find themselves the subject of a supernatural attack.

The Damned, set in 19th-century Iceland, follows a widow faced with a dire decision when a shipwreck endangers her struggling fishing village. Amidst a harsh winter, she must weigh the risks of rescuing survivors against the dwindling resources vital for her community's survival.

Runtime 89 minutesGenres Drama, Mystery, HorrorCast Guillermo Uria, Mícheál Óg Lane, Turlough Convery, Francis Magee, Lewis Gribben, Odessa Young, Joe Cole, Siobhan Finneran, Rory McCannDirector Thordur PalssonWriters Jamie Hannigan

The Damned takes place in the 19th century and focuses on a small group of fishermen who are having a challenging season. The action truly begins when Eva,...

Awards contenders dominate new releases at UK and Ireland cinemas this weekend as Babygirl, Maria and A Real Pain all launch.

Nicole Kidman returns withBabygirl,which Entertainment Film Distributors is opening in 575 locations. Halina Reijn’s 18-ratederotic drama stars Kidmanas a high-powered CEO who becomes embroiled in an affair with a young intern, played by Harris Dickinson. Further cast include Antonio Banderas and Sophie Wilde.

Other awards contenders with 18-ratings include this year’s Anora, which grossed just shy of £2m for Universal and 2023’s Poor Things, with a £1.6m opening and a £7.1m total run for Disney’s Searchlight.

The 2025 box office has so far been dominated by the final movies of 2024, but Den of Thieves 2: Pantera and Better Man arrive with hopes of potentially bringing the new year some early hits. Although the Robbie Williams biopic, where he's a CGI chimpanzee, received a limited theatrical release at Christmas, it only played in six theaters. January 10th marks the wide release of Better Man as it squares off with Gerard Butler and O'Shea Jackson Jr.'s sequel to 2018's surprise action/crime hit Den of Thieves.

The option for audiences to watch Den of Thieves 2 in theaters, and Better Man for that matter, is just what the box office needs at this stage. Mufasa: The Lion King, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Nosferatu, Moana 2, and Wicked were the top five earners at the domestic box office during the first weekend of January. With Vertical's horror movie...

For the first of the new year, Kevin sits down to review another of his picks of the big budget / low budget / no budget movie landscape. Giving you his personal opinion on why you should or shouldn’t give this movie your time… This episode it’s horror film The Damned, the feature debut of director Thordur Palsson.

A 19th-century widow has to make an impossible choice when, during an especially cruel winter, a foreign ship sinks off the coast of her Icelandic fishing village.

The Damned will be available in UK and Irish cinemas from 10th January, courtesy of Vertical Entertainment.

Universal’s “Nosferatu” made a chilling debut at the U.K. and Ireland box office, securing the overall top spot with £5.2 million ($6.5 million), including previews.

Over the three-day weekend the gothic horror remake, with $3.8 million, was just behind Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King.” The photorealistic animation continued to roar with $4 million in its third week, bringing its total to $25.9 million.

Studiocanal’s “We Live in Time” landed in third place with $3.5 million. Meanwhile, “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” from Paramount, last weekend’s chart-topper, dropped to fourth, adding $3.3 million to its total of $23.4 million. Disney’s “Moana 2” continued to show remarkable staying power, rounding out the top five with $2.2 million in its sixth week for a cumulative gross of $47.8 million.

Universal’s “Wicked” held firm in sixth place, earning $2 million in its seventh week, pushing its total to $71.7 million. The family favorite “Paddington in Peru” from Studiocanal slipped to seventh,...

Mysterious deaths befall members of an isolated 19th-century fishing community after they choose not to aid the survivors of a shipwreck

Every film ought to have a signature image, and slow-burn supernatural chiller The Damned has a doozy: a body washed ashore shows unexpected signs of life, a stirring in the midsection … but surprise, slash the bloated stomach open and there’s an eel in there, wriggling about and presumably feasting on guts. Unfortunately nothing else provides quite so fulsomely gothic a moment, which is a shame, because it’s an arresting flourish.

Set in Iceland during the 19th century, The Damned is more about atmosphere and buildup than set pieces or delivery. The plot is light-touch. There’s a shipwreck off the coast where a tiny fishing community are barely scraping by. The community have a choice: try to help the shipwrecked people or let them perish. The more...

Modernity does not express itself everywhere in the same way. Whilst Europe as a whole saw a flurry of social changes during the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, life in the frozen fishing villages of Iceland remained much as it had done for centuries. Indeed, in some ways it’s not so different today. In the midwinter months, when the sun never rises far above the horizon and the air is often full of driving snow, it can be hard to see the line between land and sea, or between past and present.

In the early scenes of The Damned, Eva (Odessa Young) goes walking out among the wrecks, where the exposed bones of dead ships protrude from the snow like the ribcages of fallen giants. Now stripped almost bare by the wind, they have little to offer. Supplies are running low. In the low room where the people of the.

The first horror movie of 2025 has been released in theaters, and it is debuting to a strong Rotten Tomatoes score. 2024 was a good year for horror movies, with A Quiet Place: Day One, Smile 2, and Alien: Romulus leading the way with critical acclaim and box office success. Each turned a profit by thrilling audiences and using strong word-of-mouth to draw viewers to theaters. Notably, every one of these releases was also related to a pre-existing franchise. That happened to track with other genre trends, as the rest of the box office faced similar sequel and prequel success.

As Hollywood prepares for 2025, box office expectations could change. The lingering effects of the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes should be behind the industry. Depending on the impact of streaming services and pandemic-related disdain for theaters, theatrical success could continue to be restrained to event movies. Still, the success of horror movies indicates...

A trip to the cinema is an excellent way to pass a winter evening, but it does come with one potential drawback. After braving the winter chill for a brisk speed-walk from your parking spot to the entrance (and avoiding slipping on black ice along the way), the theater’s climate control and comfortable seats can make you temporarily forget how cold it is outside. Thordur Palsson’s directorial debut “The Damned” looks to rectify this problem, as the Icelandic horror film is singularly focused on making its viewers feel the frigid cold that permeates the bones of its characters. From icy landscape shots to midnight huddles between characters that do a middling job of preserving body warmth, Palsson immerses his audience to the point where you can almost feel the mind-numbing cold that pushes his subjects to the brink of madness.

If that strikes you as a remotely pleasant...

As awards season heats up, From Ground Zero, Palestine’s Oscar entry that’s on the shortlist for Best International Feature, debuts this weekend at about 70 AMC locations in top 20 markets and select arthouses including the Quad in New York and Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles.

The documentary from Watermelon Pictures is a series of 22 video diaries by Palestinian filmmakers commissioned and assembled by Gaza native Rashid Masharawi that show what it’s like on the ground in Gaza trying to survive and keep families safe, fed and sheltered amid Israeli bombardments. Mostly shying away from politics, From Ground Zero is a view of life in hellish conditions that also finds hope in small moments of normalcy. Masharawi, who currently lives in France, set up a fund early in the Israel-Hamas war to support filmmaking in Gaza.

Watermelon and parent MPI Media took a risk opening soon after Oscar shortlists were unveiled,...

Period horror often has a tough hill to climb within the modern landscape of cinema. Younger generations prefer a more energetic pacing in short bursts so a drawn-out film that relies on tension and dread can be a tough sell. Thankfully, I’m an old man and absolutely love any horror film that can bring me on a journey through hell, regardless of the time period. And thankfully The Damned is able to utilize the setting and give us a glimpse at a time that passed while walking the line of myth. I really enjoyed the film myself.

Actor Odessa Young and Director Thordur Palsson were gracious enough to talk to me about their film The Damned. We got into the very harsh conditions in which they filmed in as well as the difficulties of something as simple as getting equipment to their filming location. But I was surprised to...

Starring: Odessa Young, Joe Cole, Rory McCann and Siobhan Finneran The Damned, an ominous and chilling thriller, follows Eve and her crew as they come across a shipwreck and are faced with the moral dilemma to either help, or prioritise their own survival. Vertical has announced that Thordur Palsson’s ominous and chilling thriller The Damned will be released in …

The post The Damned | Chilling Nordic horror in UK & Irish cinemas from 10th January appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

Plot: A 19th-century widow has to make an impossible choice when, during an especially cruel winter, a foreign ship sinks off the coast of her Icelandic fishing village.

Review: There’s something about a period piece that lends itself to a dreadful atmosphere. Maybe it’s the harsh time period itself, which carries within it such tragedies and misfortune. Death was a constant presence. But there’s also so much room for metaphor and beautiful imagery, making it an ideal candidate for emotionally resonant stories. Especially within the horror genre. And The Damned fully utilizes its time period and setting to deliver a story that resonates even in modern times.

Odessa Young stars as Eva, the widow who owns the primary ship for a fishing village. They’ve had a particularly cruel winter, and their food supplies are growing smaller and smaller. She’s faced with some difficult choices. When...

The frozen Westfjords of Iceland serve as more than just a backdrop in The Damned; they are an ever-present character that shapes the very psyche of their people. With its sharp peaks and endless icy horizons, this barren landscape’s stark beauty evokes a sense of both wonder and dread. Here, nature is not just a setting but a relentless force that doesn’t care about human suffering—a stark reminder of humanity’s fragility.

The film’s main themes of survival and guilt are emphasized by the 19th-century setting steeped in isolation and suffering. The characters struggle with choices that echo the historical tensions of seafaring communities dealing with the harsh realities of nature as they are caught in their moral problems. As the weight of custom clashes with the urgency of survival, the period, with its limited technology and ingrained superstitions, further complicates their situation.

The character’s...

Thordur Palsson’s The Damned coasts on the striking contrasts between the wintry landscapes of its 19th-century setting and the characters who trudge across them in clothes that appear as if they’ve been assembled from blankets or potato sacks. Odessa Young is no less memorable as a young window named Eva, especially in an early scene where she makes it very plain that this woman must always choose her words carefully in the company of men, even among those who so clearly respect her for her savvy.

But there’s evocativeness and then there’s lack of context, and it feels as if the cinematography and Young’s performance are trying to deflect attention from the latter. As indicated by the stories spun by one character (Siobhan Finneran), The Damned draws on Icelandic folklore about the draugr, or reanimated corpse, and from the characters’ names we can, indeed, intuit...

I genuinely enjoyed “The Damned” from director Thordur Palsson. Haunting and creepy with strong themes of grief and abandonment. Odessa Young is wonderful as Eva, a 19th-century widow tasked with making an impossible choice – rescue the shipwrecked off the coast of her isolated fishing post or survive the cruel winter with their last remaining

The post Inside the Terrifying “The Damned’ appeared first on Manny the Movie Guy.

This winter, get ready for a chilling tale of moral conflict and survival as The Damned arrives in UK and Irish cinemas on 10 January 2025. Directed by Thordur Palsson, this psychological horror transports audiences to a 19th-century Nordic fishing outpost, where isolation and harsh winter conditions serve as the haunting backdrop for a gripping story.

Starring Odessa Young (The Staircase), Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders), and Rory McCann (Game of Thrones), The Damned follows Eva, a widowed matriarch, and her tight-knit community. Their fragile existence is upended when a shipwreck is discovered just offshore. Confronted with a harrowing moral dilemma, Eva must decide whether to extend a hand to the stranded crew or safeguard her village’s dwindling resources.

As the consequences of their decision unfold, the villagers are plagued by escalating guilt and a creeping fear that they are being punished for their choices. Tensions mount, relationships fracture, and an eerie...

Screenis listing the 2024 release dates for films in the UK and Ireland in the calendar below.

For distributors who wish to add/amend a date on the calendar, please get in touch withScreenhere.Screenis also running a calendar for festival and market dates throughout 2025here.

January

Wednesday, January 1

Nosferatu(Universal),2073(Altitude),Vanangaan(DJ Tech),Game Changer(Dreamz),We Live In Time(Studiocanal)

Friday, January 3

Nickel Boys(Curzon),Rocco And His Brothers(BFI),Diabel(Magnetes)

Wednesday, January 8

A Real Pain(Disney)

Friday, January 10

Babygirl(Efd),The Girl With The Needle(Mubi),Maria(Studiocanal),The Damned(Vertical/Miracle),It’s Raining Men...

Thordur Palsson’s The Damned explores the complexities of morality. Set in a harsh winter in the 19th century, the occupants of a fishing outpost discover a shipwrecked crew in need of assistance. With their own resources running low, Eva (Odessa Young) and her community choose their own survival over that of the others. Their decision, […]

The Damned Movie Review – Odessa Young Stars in a Sinister Horror That Cuts to the Bone Written by Sergio Pereira for Fortress of Solitude...

Game of Thrones turned a number of actors into household names. We see the likes of Kit Harington, Sophie Turner, and Peter Dinklage everywhere. But other Game of Thrones cast members all but disappeared after their parts ended, and we need to see them more.

Some of the cast members chose to step back from acting. Others have just taken less visible roles, or maybe haven't any that are right for them. Here are five Game of Thrones cast members we would love to see back on our screens.

Kerry Ingram

Kerry Ingram stole our hearts as Shireen Baratheon. We still can’t get over the way her own father did her dirty with the human sacrifice storyline. Seeing how Ser Davos mourned her and then had to mourn her all over again when he learned the truth about how she died was heartbreaking.

Since her last episode, Ingram hasn...

A mysterious ship crashes mid-winter in period chiller The Damned from director Thordur Palsson, and Bloody Disgusting has been provided with the film’s official poster today.

Look for the psychological chiller to release in theaters on January 3, 2025.

In the meantime, find the poster and previously released trailer below.

Starring Odessa Young and Joe Cole, The Damned is a tense psychological horror film that follows a 19th-century widow who is tasked with making an impossible choice when a ship sinks off the coast of her isolated fishing outpost during the middle of an especially cruel winter.

With provisions running low, Eva and her close-knit community must choose between rescuing the shipwrecked crew and prioritizing their own survival.

Facing the consequences of their decision and tormented by guilt, the inhabitants wrestle with a mounting sense of dread and begin to believe they are all being punished for their choices.

Siobhan Finneran...

One of my favorite films from this year’s New York Film Festival was Rungano Nyoni’s I Am Not a Witch follow-up On Becoming a Guinea Fowl. Winner of the Best Director prize at Cannes 2024 in its Un Certain Regard section, shared with Roberto Minervini’s The Damned, I’ve been waiting to see if A24’s original December release would stick for the film but after adding Queer and The Brutalist to their plate, they’ve shifted to the less busy March 2025 timeframe (specifically March 7) and have now debuted the new trailer.

Here’s the synopsis: “On an empty road in the middle of the night, Shula stumbles across the body of her uncle. As funeral proceedings begin around them, she and her cousins bring to light the buried secrets of their middle-class Zambian family, in filmmaker Rungano Nyoni’s surreal and vibrant reckoning with the lies we tell ourselves.

Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar, whose Venice Golden Lion winner The Room Next Door is anticipated to be a fixture this awards season, will receive Film at Lincoln Center’s 50th Chaplin Award on April 28, 2025.

News of the honour, which comes in recognition of the filmmaker’s “spirited and bold storytelling with a distinctive and colorful visual style”, was announced prior to Friday evening’s New York Film Festival Centerpiece premiere of The Room Next Door.

The Chaplin Award Tribute will feature excerpts from Almodóvar’s work and appearances by friends and collaborators.

His body of work includes 23 features, among them...

Grasshopper Film has picked up US distribution rights to Roberto Minervini’s The Damned that earned the filmmaker the best director prize when it premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard strand.

Set during the American Civil War in the winter of 1862, it follows a regiment of volunteer soldiers tasked with patrolling unchartered borderlands in western territories. As their mission ultimately changes course, the meaning behind their engagement begins to elude them.

It is the first fiction feature from Italian-born Minervini known for his long career in documentary filmmaking. Minervini shared the Un Certain Regard directing prize ex-aequo with Rungano Nyoni...

New York City's annual Tribeca Festival always brings something for everyone: from its series of short films made by all the most promising up-and-coming talent to several documentaries about a wide range of topics to the buzzy narrative features both international and close to home, all vying for Tribeca's various top prizes. Co-founded by none other than acting legend Robert De Niro in the aftermath of 2001's 9/11 attacks in an effort to revitalize the Tribeca neighborhood located in Lower Manhattan, the film festival has carefully curated its own identity over the years. While its famous big brothers like Cannes, Sundance, and the Toronto International Film Festival will always receive the bulk of attention, Tribeca tends to feel like the scrappy, blue-collar breeding ground for all the most under-the-radar offerings that the indie system has to offer.

This year's event was no exception, providing all sorts of opportunities for the curious and open-minded moviegoer.

Exclusive: Odessa Young is set to join the ensemble cast of Deliver Me From Nowhere, the upcoming Bruce Springsteen pic from 20th Century. While not confirmed, sources say she will be playing Springsteen’s love interest.

Jeremy Allen White is set to play Springsteen and Scott Cooper is directing the biopic, which tells the story of the making of the classic Springsteen album Nebraska. Paul Walter Hauser is also on board.

In April, the studio closed a deal to finance and distribute the pic, which follows the rock ‘n’ roll icon who, after grappling with personal demons and trying to wrap his arms around becoming a global superstar, wrote and recorded Nebraska, the 1982 album that rivals Joni Mitchell’s Blue as one of the most emotionally raw, dark and honest albums in recent music history.

Scott Stuber, in his first move since exiting as longtime Netflix Film head, is producing...

From June 5-16, 2024, the center of our genre-film loving world moved to New York, New York, where the Tribeca Festival unveiled a broad and diverse selection of films from around the world. Our contributors Olga Artemyeva, Martin Tsai and Edward Frumkin attended the festival in person, while J Hurtado and myself provided supplemental review coverage from officially-authorized screeners. Now that the festival has concluded -- with the jury awarding various films presented in competition -- here's a recap of our Tribeca 2024 coverage, organized by reviewer, with the films listed alphabetically by English title. Reviews by Olga Artemyeva: Adult Best Friends. All That We Love. The Damned. Darkest Miriam. A Desert. Firebrand. The Knife. Lake George. McVeigh. Restless. Sacramento. Vulcanizadora. Reviews by Martin Tsai:...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The latest edition of the Tribeca Film Festival draws to a close in New York City, leaving another strong year for new genre premieres, retrospectives, and events in its wake.

Tribeca 2024 unveiled the new premiere of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s ultra-bleak The Devil’s Bath, raucous slasher Amfad: All My Friends Are Dead, goopy sci-fi horror comedy The A-Frame, and dusty neo-noir horror A Desert to name a few of the genre offerings this year. But the fest’s genre offerings don’t stop with Midnight programming, a section dedicated to horror and high-energy genre fare.

Here’s a round-up of brief thoughts and capsule reviews of Tribeca’s narrative features that either toe-dip or crash into horror in surprising ways.

The Damned

Director Thordur Palsson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jamie Hannigan (“The Woman in the Wall”), combines 19th-century survival thrills with atmospheric supernatural chills set in an Icelandic fishing village.

The Mediterrane Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its second edition (June 22-30), with Cannes premiere The Count Of Monte Cristo set to open the event.

Scroll down for the full line-up

Directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière, the film is among seven titles in the out of competition strand, which also includes Jane Schoenbrun’s Sundance title I Saw The TV Glow and Tarsem Singh’s Dear Jassi.

The 15-strong competition section features Cannes competition titles Kinds Of Kindness and The Substance, and Berlin premiere The Strangers case starring Omar Sy,

Seven films compete in the environment-themed Mare Nostrum section,...

Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival has set the full competition and industry lineup for its second edition, which runs June 22 to 30 in the country’s capital, Valletta.

The programme includes 15 films in competition, seven out-of-competition, and seven films competing in the environment-themed Mare Nostrum section, topped up by 14 immersive projects.

Select competition titles include Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest Kinds of Kindness, Coralie Fargeat’s body horror The Substance, and The Damned by Italian filmmaker Roberto Minvervini. All three films debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Scroll down to see the full lineup. Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate director Tim Miller will serve on the competition jury.

The festival has also set its industry lineup, featuring a series of masterclass sessions. Speakers include editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis, production designer Nathan Crowley, casting director Margery Simkin, and composer Simon Franglen...

Nowhere is safe. This most basic of horror premises — and the sheer simplicity of its implications — has fueled countless classics and scares over the years. One of the biggest early surprises of this year's Tribeca Film Festival, "The Damned," takes this unsettling idea to even greater heights and establishes a can't-miss new talent cut from a similar cloth as Robert Eggers along the way. Icelandic writer/director Thordur Palsson (Netflix's "The Valhalla Murders" miniseries) makes his feature debut with a story set amid the late 1800s in a desolate fishing station, where a tiny Nordic community ekes out a living from a punishing environment that treats them as hostile invaders. The harsh (but gorgeously-shot) tundra and freezing waters trapping them on all sides lends a physical threat as imposing as the labyrinthine Nostromo in "Alien" or the research station in "The Thing." But in a supernatural wrinkle taken straight...

A vicious 19th-century morality play that gives way to psychological horror, Thordur Palsson’s “The Damned” draws on Icelandic folklore to create a tale of paranoia and superstition in an isolated outpost. A tiny fishing village plays host to the pressing question of whether to rescue a sinking ship nearby. The fishermen’s decisions in the wake of this terror from afar bring home their fears and regrets in a story told through dreams and shadows that, while often repetitive in its approach, is still effectively told.

Young widow Eva (Odessa Young) is left in charge of her husband’s fishing boat, which she lends to the town’s gruff fishermen while retaining decision-making ability. The village is surrounded by snow and icy waters, so every choice and every ration counts. The townspeople mostly get along, singing drinking and fishing songs by gas lamps in their cramped pub, but tensions...

Courtesy of Festival de Cannes

© Shochiku Co., Ltd. – Rhapsody in August by Akira Kurosawa (1991) / Graphic design © Hartland Villa

The jury of the 77th Festival de Cannes has presented its 2024 winners' list from the 22 films presented in competition this year. The Jury of the 77th Cannes Film Festival was chaired by American director, screenwriter and actress Greta Gerwig and the jury included Turkish screenwriter and photographer Ebru Ceylan, American actress Lily Gladstone, French actress Eva Green, Lebanese director and screenwriter Nadine Labaki, Spanish director, producer and screenwriter Juan Antonio Bayona, Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino, Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu, and French actor and producer Omar Sy.

Palme D’Or

Anora - Sean Baker

Grand Prix

All We Imagine as Light - Payal Kapadia

Best Director

Grand Tour - Miguel Gomes

Jury Prize

Emilia Pérez - Jacques Audiard

Special Prize

The Seed of the Sacred Fig - Mohammad Rasoulof

Best Screenplay

The Substance...

Set during the Civil War, a long way from the front lines, Roberto Minervini’s “The Damned” continues the Italian helmer’s career-long examination of the rifts and affinities between overlooked segments of American society. Apart from one long, destabilizing battle with an unseen adversary, the portrayal is a relatively peaceful one, following a group of Union soldiers assigned to scout the Northwestern frontier in 1862. While the country is divided, this assignment brings together men of different backgrounds, fostering camaraderie and mutual respect.

This is the first period piece from the director of such unvarnished depictions of contemporary Southern life as “Stop the Pounding Heart” and “The Other Side,” and yet the quiet, occasionally poetic film feels like a natural extension of the themes and approach of Minervini’s earlier work. Even within the art-house sphere, it’s a bit too thin and plotless for most audiences. Still, “The Damned...

Director Thordur Palsson has wrapped principal photography in Iceland on “The Damned,” starring Odessa Young.

Newly revealed cast for the psychological horror film includes Joe Cole (“Gangs of London”), Siobhan Finneran (“Happy Valley”), Rory McCann (“Game of Thrones”), Turlough Convery (“Killing Eve”), Lewis Gribben (“Somewhere Boy”), Francis Magee (“The Tourist”), Mícheál Óg Lane (“The Guard”) and Andrean Sigurgeirsson (“A Song Called Hate”).

The script was written by Jamie Hannigan and is based on a story by Palsson (“The Valhalla Murders”). “The Damned” tells the story of Eva, a 19th-century widow who faces a difficult decision when a ship sinks off the coast of her isolated fishing post in the middle of an especially cruel winter. Eva and her crew must decide whether to rescue the shipwrecked or survive the winter with their last remaining food. As they face the consequences of their decision and are tormented by guilt, the inhabitants...

Charlotte Rampling’s Best Actress Oscar nomination for her turn in Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years marks the first time she has been recognized by the Academy, despite five decades of work on the big screen that includes memorable turns in films like The Damned, The Night Porter and The Verdict. In France, where the actress—who turned 70 earlier this month—spends most of her time, she’s known as “La Légende”, and it’s hard to argue with the AMPAS selection when you consider the stoic, subtle and affecting work she showcases in 45 Years.

Giving her first in-depth interview since her comments on French radio in January sparked a brouhaha around the #OscarsSoWhite protests, Rampling arrives quietly and perhaps a little timidly. Her comments “could have been misinterpreted,” she later told CBS’ Sunday Morning in a statement, adding, “I simply meant to say that in an ideal world, every performance...