Fifteen years ago, director Neil Marshall's THE DESCENT was the opening film at the Fantasia International Film Festival. Now his latest film, titled THE RECKONING, is set to open this year's Fantasia festival – but things are a bit different this time around. Due to the global pandemic, this year's Fantasia festival is an online event. The movies will be screened online, using Festival Scope and Shift72's virtual screening platform, with each screening being geo-restricted to Canada and tickets only being sold to those with Canadian IP addresses.
Marshall wrote the screenplay for THE RECKONING with Edward Evers-Swindell and Charlotte Kirk, who also stars in the film alongside Sean Pertwee, Joe Anderson, Steven Waddington, Matt Ryan, Ian White, Emma Holzer, and Emma Campbell-Jones.
Described as a "poignant and horrific period thriller", THE RECKONING is set in England in 1665,
against the backdrop of the Great Plague and subsequent Witch-Hunts against women. Grace Haverstock must grapple with the tragic untimely death of her husband Joseph in a society completely consumed by fear and death. Because she rejects her landlord Squire Pendleton’s advances, she is falsely accused of being a witch and thrown in jail for a crime she didn’t commit. Grace must endure physical persecution at the hands of England’s most ruthless witch-hunter Judge Moorcroft and face her own inner demons as the Devil himself starts to work his way into her mind.
The Fantasia description says it's "a vivid, compelling and confrontational film whose themes are frighteningly pertinent to today’s concerns".
Steffen Wild and Daniel Konrad-Cooper produced the film.
This online edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival will run from August 20 through September 2. For more information, check out fantasiafestival.com