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WILDLING Still 4_preview.jpeg

Another Coming-Of-Age Story Monster Movie? Yes Thank You Please

By Kristy Puchko | Film | March 20, 2018 |

By Kristy Puchko | Film | March 20, 2018 |


WILDLING Still 4_preview.jpeg

In stories where a girl is kept locked up by a malevolent man, her discovery by a sweet-faced sheriff is usually the end. But in Fritz Böhm’s fantasy-horror film The Wilding, that’s just the beginning.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl’s Bel Powley stars as Anna, a 16-year-old girl who spent the whole of her childhood trapped in an attic by a man who called himself “Daddy” (Brad Dourif). He kept her in check with tales of the fanged and fearsome Wildling. But once she’s found and freed by a small-town sheriff (Liv Tyler), Anna faces a strange new world, and an even stranger series of events.

In her review out of the SXSW Conference, our own Tori Preston called Wildling “dark and dreamy fable with a thrilling twist of horror” that gives us a “feral fairy princess.” If that wasn’t enough to get you on board with this IFC Midnight release, check out the film’s first trailer.

I missed this out of SXSW, but won’t miss it. Between Ginger Snaps, The Lure, Raw and Blue My Mind, I’ve become a lover of horror movies where female puberty is aligned to something monstrous. The blood. The fear. The wild emotions. It’s a metaphor that works, and a genre that doesn’t shy away from dealing with the more grisly aspects of the harrowing experience of growing up girl.

Wildling will be available in NY theaters, on VOD and Digital HD on April 13th. It’ll expand to theaters in Los Angeles on April 20th.