Naomi Watts recently starred in the genre film SHUT IN, and now she's set to play a shut-in character in a psychological thriller that happens to be set during a time when it would be a very good idea for someone to be shut away in their own home. The film is titled THE WOLF HOUR, and it's set in the South Bronx during the summer of 1977. The summer when serial killer David Berkowitz, a.k.a. the "Son of Sam", was stalking the streets of the Bronx and Queens.
The character Watts plays may be safe from Berkowitz while in her home, but she's not completely safe. She is
a woman who was once a celebrated counter-culture figure who now lives alone in her South Bronx apartment, having all but cut herself off from the outside world during the notorious “Summer of Sam” in 1977. As she retreats further into isolation, an unseen tormentor begins exploiting her weaknesses.
Supported by the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, THE WOLF HOUR will be directed by Alistair Banks Griffin. Automatik's Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Bailey Conway Anglewicz are producing the film with Felipe Dieppa and Bradley Pilz, who is also fully financing the project through his company Bradley Pilz Productions. Watts serves as executive producer alongside Automatik's Fred Berger and Linda Moran or Belladonna Productions. Gabrielle Nadig is co-executive producer.
HanWay Films is overseeing international sales and distribution. The company's managing director Gabrielle Stewart says that THE WOLF HOUR
delivers Hitchcockian tension in a densely layered world with a role that will exploit every fibre of Academy Award nominee Naomi Watt’s emotional range as an actor. Director Alistair Banks Griffin has a clear vision of the world he is enveloping Watts in: all of our senses are going to be stimulated."
Filming is set to begin in New York City by the end of the year.