Shelley Duvall was a Texas college student when she basically just fell into an acting career. She happened to meet director Robert Altman at a party while he was in Texas shooting his 1970 movie Brewster McCloud. Intrigued by her “upbeat presence and unique physical appearance”, the director and crew members talked Duvall into taking a role in the film. Suddenly she was an actress who started racking up credits: Nashville, Annie Hall, The Shining, Popeye, Time Bandits, Roxanne, The Portrait of a Lady, and fifty more, including hosting her own TV show, Faerie Tale Theatre. She retired from acting over twenty years ago and in recent years she has been in the news for her struggles with mental illness, including an appearance on the Dr. Phil show in 2016… But soon we’ll have a new Duvall performance to watch, thanks to the upcoming werewolf movie The Forest Hills!
Genre fans are hyped to see Duvall share the screen with the likes of Chiko Mendez (Smothered by Mothers), Edward Furlong (Terminator 2: Judgment Day), Dee Wallace (Critters), Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), Stacey Nelkin (Halloween III: Season of the Witch), Marianne Hagan (Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers), Linda Flores (Cops and Robbers), and Furlong’s Brainscan co-star Jamie Marsh.
Written and directed by Scott Goldberg, The Forest Hills tells the story of a man who is tormented by nightmarish visions after enduring head trauma while camping in the Catskill woods.
Duvall plays “the mother of the mentally and emotionally disturbed Rico (Mendez), who serves as his inner voice.”
The Forest Hills was getting a lot of press at the end of 2022 and the start of this year, but following a premiere screening at Kevin Smith’s movie theatre in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey this past March, we haven’t heard anything more about it. Here’s hoping there will be release news to share soon, because horror fans are eager to show their support for Duvall’s return to acting. I include myself among those horror fans, as The Shining is one of my favorite movies and I remember watching Faerie Tale Theatre when I was a kid.
What is your favorite Shelley Duvall acting role? Are you looking forward to The Forest Hills? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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