One year after its premiere at 2021 Sundance Film Festival, The Cursed, previously called Eight for Silver, is finally getting a theatrical release (on February 18, according to Jacob Yakob from LD Entertainment, which is self-distributing it). Watch the official trailer below:
Check out screencaptures from the trailer on our photo gallery:
Eight for Silver had its premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival last January and the reception has been good so far, currently ranking at 75% (Fresh) on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer.
Read what the critics have to say about the horror film and Boyd’s performance as John McBride:
Holbrook is no stranger to genre films, channeling the same charisma he showcased in Logan and The Predator while layering in the sort of brooding intensity that made him so watchable during the first two seasons of Narcos.
Total Film (3/5 stars)
Part of Ellis’ evocative success is in his casting; Petrie, Holbrook and Kelly Reilly (as the torn wife of Laurent) are unexpected deployment and bring a certain gravitas to proceedings […] and while Holbrook’s usual drawling swagger is tempered, his dexterity with a gun and latent family sorrow leans into the Narcos persona that made him a star.
Holbrook (Two/One) is a solid presence, although the American actor never quite fits into this so-called French fold either.
Check out a brand new interview Boyd gave to Golden Globes about his period horror flick during Sundance Film Festival:
Eight for Silver is a unique reinvention of the horror genre that offers up werewolves, gypsy curses and old English elitism. Written and directed by Sean Ellis, who has a fine time playing with archetypical tropes and at times manages to both physical disgust and emotionally engage in the space of a few frames.
After a land baron (Alistair Petrie) orders some horrific acts against a traveling community of Romani people, a curse is laid upon the village. Soon after, the children of the attackers are haunted by horrific nightmares; then slowly picked apart by a menacing beast. When a traveling pathologist mysteriously arrives, the locals realize that John McBride (Boyd Holbrook), might be able to help them resolve the increasingly perilous occurrences, unaware of his own connection to the danger. We spoke to Holbrook during the festival.
On the day after he was announced as a member of The Sandman cast, Boyd Holbrook was interviwed by Collider’s Steven Weintraub, where he talked about not only that, but doing Eight for Silver and past works like Narcos, Logan e Gone Girl.
Watch the full interview below:
Read below the full interview Boyd gave to Screen Rant about his new horror flick Eight for Silver, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival. He also revelead he’s excited to play The Corinthian in The Sandman:
Eight For Silver, the philosophical take on the werewolf mythos by acclaimed auteur Sean Ellis, had its world premiere at Sundance this weekend. The arthouse horror film stars Boyd Holbrook (Quibi’s The Fugitive) as John McBride, a hunter who is roped into the troubles of the Laurent family when he tries to discover what happened to their young son.
His mission becomes intertwined with a secret the family patriarch, Seamus (Alastair Pierce of Rogue One), is fighting to keep. As John uncovers more of the human horrors that preceded the superhuman ones, neither he nor the family he’s protecting will ever be the same.
Holbrook spoke to Screen Rant about the research he did to understand his character, the joy he felt at working with a director like Ellis, and how his own directing experience informed his performance.
Watch below TheWrap Eight for Silver panel at virtual Sundance Film Festival, featuring Boyd Holbrook, Alistair Petrie and director Sean Ellis, in which they discuss, among other things, a particular bloody scene:
In an interview to Film Updates, the Eight for Silver director Sean Ellis talked about casting Boyd Holbrook as John McBride, who, according to website, “delivers the best performance in the film, drawing on his character’s shadowy past to turn in a layered performance that will stay with audiences far after the movie ends”:
Boyd was the first [actor] on board, What I like about Boyd is that people don’t necessarily know who he is by name, but then you say what he was in and they go all, ‘Oh yeah!’ You tell them he’s the blond guy in Narcos and they go, ‘Oh, yeah, I love that!’ You tell them he was the bad guy in Logan and they’re like, ‘I loved him in that!’ He told us in the beginning, ‘I look for projects where I can lose myself in the role. I’m not necessarily coming to a project as Boyd Holbrook.’ He likes the role to take over and he becomes sort of invisible behind the role. So much so, that these roles are better known than him.
On “the elephant in the room”, aka Boyd’s English accent for the role, Sean said:
Boyd said, ‘I know you’ve written it as English. Can I send you a tape of myself [speaking in an English accent]?’ So he recorded himself speaking with an English accent and for me, it was very close. I thought, ‘I think this guy can do it. I think he can do it.’ And when I said yes, he just said to me, ‘Don’t worry. I’m going to work really, really hard. That was just a quick taping, but for the next three months, I’m gonna be all over the accents.’ So I think by the time he turned up on set, he was so well-prepared and it was kind of strange because he almost didn’t break accent the whole time we were working together. So even when we weren’t shooting, he was basically mirroring my accent back to me as we were talking. He was in constant practice.
He also talked about doing indie movies and his casting as The Corinthian in The Sandman. More below:
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 29 (UPI) — Boyd Holbrook has been in big Hollywood movies like Gone Girl, Logan and The Predator. However, Holbrook said his new film that premieres at the Sundance Film Festival, Eight for Silver, is the kind of independent movie he loves to make.
“It was just a more intimate experience that I do have to say I’m a sucker for,” Holbrook told UPI in a phone interview.
Eight for Silver is a monster movie set in the 1800s. Holbrook plays John McBride, a pathologist who visits a British village and agrees to help the Laurent family find a missing child. What the Laurents assume was a wolf attack, McBride knows actually was the manifestation of a gypsy curse.
Holbrook said he was impressed that Sean Ellis wrote, directed and produced the film. The cast and crew — including Alistair Petrie and Kelly Reilly as Seamus and Isabelle Laurent — lived close together for seven weeks at the film’s central France location.