This ain’t the kind of family that Vin Diesel constantly talks about. This family is seemingly possessed by something dark. Fifth Season has just released the trailer for the upcoming horror film, Family. It brings a new meaning to the phrase that parents tell their children that goes, “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” As a young girl starts to suspect her parents are inhabited by some invisible force that are now targeting her.
The film stars Ruth Wilson, Ben Chaplin, Cameron Dawson Gray and Allan Corduner. The official plot synopsis reads,
“Ten-year-old Johanna and her parents Naomi (Ruth Wilson) and Harry (Ben Chaplin) have moved back to Naomi’s childhood home in the suburbs of Philadelphia. When Johanna hangs a magic birdhouse to protect her ailing father, his illness worsens, dark visions creep in, and her beloved dog vanishes without a trace. Convinced a sinister spirit is to blame, Johanna spirals into a haunting fantasy world that mirrors her deepest fears.”
Benjamin Finkel directs the film from a screenplay he also wrote. Jewerl Keats Ross and Ruth Wilson are on board, serving as executive producers. Meanwhile, Lynette Howell Taylor, Samantha Housman and Benjamin Finkel are the producers on the project.
The film looks to finally get a release after being completed back in 2024 and screening at the SXSW Film Festival as a Midnighter movie. The Hollywood Reporter got to screen the film and gave it a favorable reaction, saying, “The film has an affinity with Ari Aster’s Hereditary, using horror as a metaphor for dark family dynamics, as the blunt title Family suggests. But it is so obvious early on that the terrifying apparitions and her parents’ evil behavior come from Johanna’s mind that the jump scares are less jump-y than they might have been. Finkel directs the actors and camera with impressive precision, though, and the horror scenes are beautifully crafted, even when they are standard tropes: lights shining eerily from the isolated family house, surrounded by dark woods; a tracking shot down a narrow, empty hallway toward a glowing room; Harry as Johanna imagines him, crawling down the stairs to the basement. Throughout, Gray convincingly displays Johanna’s pain.”
Family hits theaters and on demand starting FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25.