By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Lovecraftian horror comes to an unexpected setting in this two-hander fright film.
Shudder has announced that it has picked up GLORIOUS, directed by Rebekah McKendry, and will release it exclusively in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand on Thursday, August 18. The film, just announced this morning as a world premiere at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival this July, was written by Todd Rigney, Joshua Hull and David Ian McKendry and stars Ryan Kwanten (TRUE BLOOD) and Oscar winner J.K. Simmons. The synopsis: “Kwanten plays a young man who is spiraling out of control after a bad breakup. His situation worsens after he finds himself locked inside a rest-stop bathroom with a mysterious figure [Simmons] speaking to him from an adjacent stall. As he tries to escape, he realizes he is an unwilling player in a situation bigger and more terrible than he could have imagined.”
“For years, I had been searching for a project that would let me show my preferred artistic style–that would let me be absurdist, sardonic, transgressive and weird. And GLORIOUS gets really f’n weird,” says director McKendry. “As a diehard horror fan, I’m thrilled GLORIOUS has found a home at Shudder, and I know Shudder fans will find something unique, wild and thought-provoking lurking inside our rural rest-stop bathroom.”
Adds Shudder general manager Craig Engler, “With GLORIOUS, Rebekah brings Lovecraftian horror to a place it’s never been seen before: a rest-stop men’s room. She and her all-star cast have created an inventive and original cosmic horror that manages to be both darkly hilarious and profoundly personal.”
