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The dark arts, an isolated religious community, and some devout fanatics—these are the main elements of British filmmaker Dean Puckett’s debut film, The Severed Sun. Set against the beautiful landscape of Bodmin Moor, Puckett crafts a moody, slow-burn horror, elevated by mesmerizing sound design and a cast of intriguing characters. In some moments, it feels a bit all over the place, mainly because the film throws around terms from religion and witchcraft without ever really exploring them. But credit where it’s due, the filmmaker deserves praise for shedding light on the oppression of women in deeply religious settings. That said, a deeper exploration of this theme could’ve made the film even more impactful.

Spoilers Ahead

What happens in the movie?

Magpie, a pastor’s daughter, is stuck in an abusive marriage, and she decides to poison her husband and mutilate him in the woods. Right after she kills her abuser,...

A hit at Fantastic Fest and Fantaspoa, Dean Puckett’s uneasy folk horror tale The Severed Sun opens with it own tale on a myth found all over the world: that of a romance between the Moon and the Sun. Unusually, this focuses first on the moon, perhaps an early hint of Puckett’s intention to focus on women and marginalised people rather than on those with more obvious power. It also introduces the idea that a child emerged from that relationship: a forgotten, wounded thing, seeking solace in the shadows where their light could not reach.

This is the only direct explanation we get of the occult ideas at play in the film, and it does not seem to be something we’re supposed to take at face value. Like the monster we will later see lurking in the forest, it’s primarily a metaphor, introducing the idea of secret knowledge,...

Official Trailer for The Conjuring: Last Rites: "From New Line Cinema comes the ninth entry in the more than $2 billion theatrical Conjuring universe, The Conjuring: Last Rites, directed by franchise veteran Michael Chaves and produced by franchise architects James Wan and Peter Safran.

The Conjuring: Last Rites delivers another thrilling chapter of the iconic Conjuring cinematic universe, based on real events. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson reunite for one last case as renowned, real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren in a powerful and spine-chilling addition to the global box office-breaking franchise.

Farmiga and Wilson star alongside Mia Tomlinson and Ben Hardy, who portray Ed and Lorraine’s daughter Judy Warren and her boyfriend, Tony Spera, as well as Steve Coulter returning as Father Gordon, Rebecca Calder, Elliot Cowan, Kíla Lord Cassidy, Beau Gadsdon, John Brotherton and Shannon Kook.

Chaves directs from a screenplay by Ian Goldberg & Richard Naing and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick,...

"There will be periods of darkness and light!" Yes, but this looks like such a dark film. Dark Star Pictures has revealed an official trailer for The Severed Sun, a British folk horror from filmmaker Dean Puckett. This premiered at last year's Fantastic Fest in Austin in the fall, and will be out to watch in May next month including on VOD. Magpie lives in an isolated religious community ruled over by her father, The Pastor. She kills her abusive husband, awakening a supernatural Beast in the process. She becomes an outcast, and as the Beast unleashes bloody carnage, a brutal witch hunt begins, tearing the community apart. The is the real synopsis straight from IMDb! Starring Emma Appleton as Magpie, Toby Stephens, Barney Harris, Lewis Gribben, Oliver Maltman, James Swanton. In this gripping tale of faith, fear, and the darkness within, friendships crumble, loyalties are tested, and the community hurtles toward self-destruction.

An isolated religious community is torn asunder by the arrival of a mysterious beast in the new trailer for The Severed Sun, a folk horror movie arriving this May from Dark Sky Films.

Writer-Director Dean Puckett makes his feature debut with The Severed Sun, releasing in theaters and Digital on May 16, 2025.

The Severed Sun is set “In the heart of an isolated religious community, The Pastor delivers his fervent sermons to a devoted congregation. But dark secrets fester. In the depths of the forest, The Pastor’s daughter, Magpie, takes desperate action, ending the life of her abusive husband. Little does she know, his murder will unleash a malevolent force—a mysterious beast with shimmering white eyes. As weeks pass, suspicion and paranoia grip the community, with accusatory fingers pointed at Magpie. The Pastor struggles to restore Magpie’s dwindling faith, and he is unable to bring her back into ‘The Truth.

The Black Sunday Film Festival is back with blood on its boots and a mission to celebrate the boldest voices in genre cinema. Now in its sixth edition, the Essex-based event has announced a striking line-up for 2025, running from 1st to 3rd May at Colchester’s Firstsite. Championing independent horror, dark sci-fi, psychological thrillers and everything in between, the festival has carved out a reputation for unearthing daring new work from both the UK and beyond. This year’s programme is no exception.

Opening night sets the tone with three wildly different but equally provocative features. Kaye Adelaide’s The Rebrand makes its UK debut, turning influencer culture inside out in a mockumentary that promises satire with bite. That’s followed by Mary Beth McAndrews’ Bystanders, an unflinching revenge thriller that left festival audiences reeling during its previous run on the circuit. The triple-bill concludes with the Essex premiere of Krazy House,...

Exclusive: This year’s Manchester Film Festival is set to run from March 14 – 23 and will open with a screening of The Penguin Lessons, directed by British filmmaker Peter Cattaneo and starring Steve Coogan.

Based on the best-selling memoir, the film tells the story of an Englishman’s personal and political awakening during a cataclysmic period in Argentine history, brought about by his unlikely adoption of a penguin.

Manchester will screen 37 features, including 15 UK premieres and 4 world premieres. All films will be screening in Manchester for the first time. This includes the Manchester premiere of the UK’s Oscar selection Santosh from Sandhya Suri, Sundance, and Cannes hit Good One directed by India Donaldson, and South by Southwest Audience Award Winner My Dead Friend Zoe from Kyle Hausmann-Stokes.

Other highlights include the UK premieres of Y2K, A24’s latest horror comedy starring Fred Durst and directed by Kyle Mooney, the...

The UK Global Screen Fund’s (Ukgsf) next round of awardees from its distribution strand of support includes The Penguin Lessons, Bring Them Down, The Salt Path and Kneecap.

The Ukgsf has issued 18 new awards, administered by the BFI, to support international opportunities for the UK’s independent screen sector. Ukgsf is financed through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Dcms), and the awards see a further £413,995 allocated through the £7m per year fund’s international distribution strand.

The international distribution strand is now managed by Jordan Allwood, who joined the team in October from UK sales agent Independent Entertainment and replacesFrancesca Walker.

Edmonton’s premiere genre film festival, NorthwestFEARFest, is pulling out all the stops this October with six spine-tingling days and nights of new and classic genre cinema haunting Metro Cinema. Running from October 16 to 22, the lineup is peppered with myriad highlights, including the local premiere of Parker Finn’s Smile 2 and a 50th anniversary screening of Brian De Palma‘s Phantom of the Paradise with special guest Paul Williams!

Festival Director & Programmer Guy Lavallee says audiences are in for Edmonton’s biggest celebration of horror, thriller, dark comedy, and retro genre favourites. “With so much local support for our first 2, I’m pretty stoked to finally be able to announce the full 2024 lineup,” Lavallee announced. “Starting with our phenomenal Opening Night Film, Smile 2, our whole team is excited about this year’s movies, and I hope local genre enthusiasts will be as pumped as we are.

Lavallee continues,...

As summer wanes and autumn sets upon us, it seems the perfect time to get in some folk horror before we feast our eyes upon the darker, supernatural fare that we tend to embrace during the Halloween season. And I found just the film at Fantastic Fest this year. Dean Puckett’s The Severed Sun is a modern folk horror tale that is full of metaphor and meaning, as well as unsettling imagery and a measure of brutality. It incorporates religion, toxic masculinity, female power, and a strange creature lurking in the woods.

The film wastes no time and opens strong with a woman killing her abusive husband. This woman is Magpie (Emma Appleton). When we join her story, she has had enough. She isn’t coming to a realization, or making a plan. She is Done. She refuses to live with his abuse toward her and her children any longer,...

Evil comes in many forms. In horror films, it’s often in the form of an inhuman creature or supernatural entity. With folk horror films, however, evil is often personified in people and their actions, seeing the sub-genre interrogate the dark nature of mankind. In The Severed Sun, writer/director Dean Puckett‘s feature debut, a creature may go on a killing spree, but it’s far from the film’s true evil.

In an isolated British community led by a strict pastor, religion rules the land. When his daughter Magpie (Emma Appleton) gruesomely murders her abusive husband, she inadvertently (or deliberately?) conjures a woodland creature that begins targeting the evil men in the village. As the bodies start to fall, suspicions start to rise, with particular attention being paid to Magpie. The rebellious woman, along with her sons Daniel and Sam (Zachary Tanner), must battle the village’s conservative...

Exclusive: Altitude Media Group has boarded a documentary shot entirely inside the Grand Theft Auto video game world.

Grand Theft Hamlet will follow the story of out-of-work theater actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, who had the idea to stage a full production of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ within Grand Theft Auto 5 during the dull days of the third Covid-19 lockdown in the UK three years ago.

Indie studio Altitude has taken worldwide rights after striking a deal for the “hilarious and profoundly moving” film, which Crane and Pinny Grylls wrote and directed. The doc gets its worldwide premiere at SXSW on Sunday (March 10) and will get a European premiere at Cph:dox.

“We are extremely proud and excited to be partnering with Pinny, Sam and the whole team on Grand Theft Hamlet and cannot wait for audiences to experience this singular and masterful piece of machinima filmmaking,” said Altitude Film Sales Managing Director Mike Runagall.

U.K. producers Evan Leighton-Davis and Ben Bond have launched a new financing fund, Heatseeker Media, a rolling finance facility to provide funding for independent film and TV producers.

Rare for these sorts of indie financing facilities, the London-based fund will provide development funding for producers, initially in the $100,000 to $1 million range for individual projects. Backing for the fund will come from a suite of private investors, mainly high-net-worth individuals, in the U.K., Europe and the U.S..

The first group of films to benefit from the fund include Romola Garai’s Monstrous Beauty, a period drama featuring The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey, which was a hot pre-sale title at the Cannes and AFM markets last year; the horror film The Severed Sun from director Dean Puckett starring Emma Appleton of The Witcher; and Ita Fitzgerald’s Irish drama West the Road featuring Imelda Staunton. The Severed Sun,...

Emma Appleton is all set to bewitch the audience once more in her new project. The actress is known for her spellbinding performance in The Witcher. The upcoming indie film has caught the attention of horror enthusiasts. The untitled feature will mark the debut of the promising filmmaker Dean Puckett as reported by Collider.

The film narrates a haunting portrayal of a terrified town, and it features Appleton at the heart of what seems to be a nightmarish scenario. Appleton's look hints at something sinister unfolding​​, while dressed in old English attire and smeared with blood.

Not many details are known about the film. We do know that the film has already wrapped up production in the southwest coast of England. Aside from that, the narrative revolves around a brutal witch hunt that wreaks havoc in a small religious community. The story takes a dark turn following the enigmatic death of a town member.

The debut feature from filmmaker Dean Puckett, production has wrapped in England on an untitled folk horror movie, and Deadline shares a first-look image with us today.

Emma Appleton (“The Witcher”) stars.

In the upcoming horror movie, “When Magpie’s husband dies in mysterious circumstances, a brutal witch-hunt threatens to tear apart an isolated religious community.”

Jodhi May, Lewis Gribben, Barney Harris, Oliver Maltman, James Swanton, and Toby Stephens also star.

The film is produced by Rebecca Wolff of Grasp the Nettle Films and Jude Goldrei of Lunar Lander Films. Executive Producers are Piers Holdsworth Hunt, Kate Byers, Linn Waite, Malik Ali, Badie Ali, Hamza Ali, Evan Leighton-Davis, and Rupert Hanbury-Tenison. Co-Producers are Daria Nitsche and James Brant, with Ella Turner as Associate Producer.

Deadline notes, “The project was developed as part of the BFI, BBC Films, and Creative UK’s iFeatures program, which has developed successful indie pics.”

The...

Exclusive: Emma Appleton is among the cast leading a currently untitled indie British folk horror from debut feature filmmaker Dean Puckett, which has just wrapped production on the southwest coast of England.

Appleton leads the cast, which is rounded out by Jodhi May, Lewis Gribben, Barney Harris, Oliver Maltman, James Swanton, and Toby Stephens. The film is produced by Rebecca Wolff of Grasp the Nettle Films and Jude Goldrei of Lunar Lander Films. Logline reads: When Magpie’s husband dies in mysterious circumstances, a brutal witch-hunt threatens to tear apart an isolated religious community.

Production took place on Cornwall’s Bodmin Moor, an expansive rocky moorland. The Cornish region has a long and rich history of horror filmmaking. Alfred Hitchcock’s second du Maurier adaptation Rebecca is set in Cornwall, and more recently, the region’s distinct landscape feature heavily in the work...

Stars: Valeria San Martin, Agustin Olcese, Marlene Pedersen Chauviere, Bruno Giacobbe, Agustin Bogliano, Marcos Bogliano, Martín Canalicchio, Ines Corengia, Pablo Vilela | Written by Ariel Luque, Daniel J. Phillips Directed by Chris Beyrooty, Dean Law, Ariel Luque, Jiwon Moon, Daniel J. Phillips, Dean Puckett, Nicolás Onetti

I seem like I say it quite regularly but I do really enjoy horror anthologies. There are obviously plenty of poor ones out there but generally if the runtime of each segment is kept short, then there’s always a good short or two in each anthology. And if you’re not enjoying one, then it’s never much of a wait until that one is over and another new story will start.

The wrap-around segment of The Red Book Ritual shows three friends playing the red book ‘game’. Kind of like a Ouija board but what they don’t know is that in the...

"What can I say, to you, good people? It's right here in black & white..." An intriguing tale of revenge in this excellent short film The Sermon, from UK filmmaker Dean Puckett. This premiered a few years back and was reposted by our friends at Short of the Week. To go along with Mike Flanagan's new series "Midnight Mass" - why not? In an isolated church community in the English countryside, a powerful hate preacher prepares to deliver a sermon to his flock, but his daughter has a secret that could destroy them all. Starring Molly Casey & Denise Stephenson as Ella & Ava, plus Grant Gillespie as The Pastor. This was shot on 35mm film has a nice grainy look and feel to it. I am always down for a good revenge story, especially one that follows through. That's all I will say before anyone watches it as I don't want to give away anything else.

Diaphana has taken French rights to Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s drama.

On the eve of the EFM, Berlin-based sales outfit m-appeal has announced two key deals for its Berlinale Competition contender Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy in advance of the film’s world premiere next week.

Leading French arthouse outfit Diaphana will handle Japanese filmmaker Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s latest film in France and is planning a theatrical release later this year on 80 to 150 prints.

Other deals confirmed are Paulo Branco’s Lisbon-based Leopardo Filmes for Portugal; GreenNarea Media for Korea; and Andrews Films for Taiwan. All are planning a theatrical release...

The films were made back-to-back in Los Angeles.

UK-based sales firm Timeless Films is debuting the second and third Rock Dog animated films to buyers at next week’s online European Film Market.

Both films were produced back-to-back at Splash Entertainment in Los Angeles, in association with Huayi Brothers Pictures and Hb Wink Animation, and presented by Lionsgate. Timeless has worldwide sales rights.

It will screen the finished version of Rock Dog 2: Rock Around The Park to buyers, and will provide first images for Rock Dog 3: Battle The Beat, which is due for completion in April.

Screen can...

Filming is underway on the Sky Original TV drama.

Filming is underway on Sky Original TV drama This Sceptred Isle, which has revealed a first-look image of Kenneth Branagh as UK prime minister Boris Johnson.

The five-episode drama is directed by Michael Winterbottom and produced by his Revolution Films with Richard Brown’s Passenger and Fremantle.

It will air in autumn 2022 on Sky Atlantic and streaming service Now TV.

Winterbottom has co-written the series with Kieron Quirke and will executive produce with Brown. Revolution’s Melissa Parmenter will produce with Josh Hyams and Anthony Wilcox.

The drama will focus on...

Multi-year deals are exclusive, cover all STX productions and acquisitions.

Heading into virtual EFM, ErosSTX International has signed an output deal with Italy’s Leone Film Group and renewed key deals around the world.

Multi-year arrangements have been renewed with Roadshow Films in Australia and New Zealand, The Searchers in Belgium and the Netherlands, Sf Studios in Scandinavia, and Vertical Distribution in Eastern Europe.

The Roadshow, Searchers, Sf Studios and Vertical output deals were establised in 2015 and as with Leone are exclusive and cover all STX productions and acquisitions.

STX’s international pipeline includes Neil Burger’s EFM hot sales...

Bankside will introduce the project to buyers at EFM.

Tuppence Middleton, Max Harwood and Thomas Turgoose will lead the cast of Dean Puckett’s Magpie, a UK title developed by Bankside Films.

Bankside Films has boarded sales on the project, having taken over development through its in-house development slate after the film was initially selected for Creative England’s iFeatures scheme in 2018. Bankside will present to buyers at next week’s online European Film Market.

Puckett’s fiction feature directorial debut is an evolution of his 2018 short The Sermon.

It follows an eponymous character, who lives in an isolated church...

Bankside will introduce the project to buyers at EFM.

Tuppence Middleton, Max Harwood and Thomas Turgoose will lead the cast of Dean Puckett’s Magpie, a UK title developed through Creative England’s low-budget iFeatures scheme.

Bankside Films has boarded sales on the project, having provided further development beyond iFeatures through its in-house development slate. It will present to buyers at next week’s online European Film Market.

Puckett’s fiction feature directorial debut is an evolution of his 2018 short The Sermon.

It follows an eponymous character, who lives in an isolated church community ruled over by her father The Pastor.

Happy Friday, readers! We made it though another week somehow, so why not celebrate by taking a load off and enjoying some excellent horror shorts from an array of subgenres?

Just because I felt like we could all use a laugh right about now, I’m kicking off today’s installment of Salutes Your Shorts with the dark comedy Sam Did It. Then, we have a special effects showcase to behold in Human Cattle from directors Carlos Henriques and Phil Pattison, and for a double dose of creepiness, be sure to check out both I Heard It Too and The Sermon (which I haven’t been able to get out of my head since I discovered it a few weeks ago.

Sam Did It (Directed by Dominic Burgess)

Synopsis: Sam is about to meet his celebrity idol... the only problem is, Sam works in a morgue... and his idol is dead.

Aleksandra Terpinska’s “Other People” and Peter Dourountzis’s “Rascal” won the inaugural Arte Kino International Prize at the 10th edition of Les Arcs Film Festival’s Co-Production Village.

The award was given by Remi Burah, who runs Arte France Cinéma and launched in 2016 ArteKino Festival, a European online festival in partnership with the digital service Festival Scope. Each “Other People” and “Rascal” will receive 2000 Euros.

Mixing comedy, drama and musical, “Other People” tells the story of a man who lives with his mum and teenage sister who starts a romance with Iwona, a woman in her early 40’s who cannot cope with her marriage. “Other People” was selected as part of this year’s focus on Poland. Terpinska’s last short “The Best Fireworks Ever” premiered at Cannes’s Critics’ Week and won two awards.

Meanwhile, “Rascal” in a French-language thriller following a charming young man who arrives in...

Marylise Dumont’s “Black Dog,” Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen’s “Ashes and Snow” and “Each of Us” are among the 20 projects which will be pitched at the 10th edition of Les Arcs Film Festival’s Co-Production Village.

The Co-Production Village will run alongside the festival which will be presided by Ruben Ostlund, the Swedish helmer of Palme d’Or-winning and Oscar-nominated “The Square,” and will open on Dec. 15 with Louis Garrel’s “A Faithful Man.” The movie will compete along with nine films selected by Frederic Boyer, the artistic director of both Les Arcs and Tribeca festivals.

Besides Ostlund, a flurry of high-profile European filmmakers, industry figures and talent are expected to attend the festival, notably Laetitia Casta (“A Faitful Man”), Alex Lutz (“Guy”), Lukas Dhont (“Girl”), Charlotte Le Bon (“The Promise”), Jeremie Renier (“Double Lover”), Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (“Les estivants”), Romain Duris (“Heartbreaker”), Camille Cottin (“Call My Agent!), and Thomas Vinterberg...

20 films selected for Co-Production Village, including 11 first features.

The Les Arcs Film Festival, celebrating its 10th year in 2018, has unveiled its selection of co-production projects for this year’s Industry Village.

Running December 15-18, the event is a financing platform for feature films in development across Europe.

This year, 20 projects have been selected, including a new film from Carla Simon, whose Summer 93 won best first feature at this year’s Berlinale. Her new project Each Of Us is being co-directed with Anne Zohra Berrached and Meritxell Colell and produced by Spain’s Alhena Production.

Also at the event is Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen...

Hey everyone! With this writer heading out to Austin for Fantastic Fest 2018 recently, the second installment of our Salute Your Shorts column for September is running a week behind, so my apologies there. But now that I’m back in the swing of things, we’ve got a brand new batch of genre-related short films that you should definitely check out, including Satan’s Bite from Dean Puckett, Let Her Go by director Arie Socorro, Karen Gillan’s Conventional (which she also stars in), and Can Evrenol’s To My Mother and Father, which inspired his latest feature Housewife, which comes out next week.

Satan’s Bite (Directed by Dean Puckett)

Synopsis: Dean Puckett’s devilish Straight 8 short Satan’s Bite sees an accused witch turn the tables on her capturers.



To My Mother and Father (Directed by Can Evrenol)

Synopsis: When Jimmy is left alone in his house he...

This past week, horror fans in Fort Lauderdale were treated to genre movie screenings and celebrations at the annual Popcorn Frights Film Festival, and this year was the biggest one yet. Daily Dead was thrilled to be one of the media sponsors of this year's Popcorn Frights Film Festival, and before we look forward to next year's festival, we're proud to share the jury prize and Audience Award winners, including John McPhail's Anna and the Apocalypse:

Press Release: Fort Lauderdale, Fl – Popcorn Frights Film Festival, Southeast United States’ largest genre film event, has announced the winners of its Jury Prize and Audience Award. The 2018 seven-night event set a new attendance record for a third consecutive year and featured over 50 World, North American, Us, and Florida premieres.

Anna and the Apocalypse, directed by John McPhail, won the Audience Award for Feature Film. In this infectious genre-mashing holiday horror musical,...

Initiative behind Lady Macbeth chooses projects for year-round development lab.

Creative England’s low-budget feature initiative iFeatures, that has credits including the Bafta-nominated Lady Macbeth and 2017 Tiff premiere Apostasy, has chosen the 12 projects and teams to take part in its new-look lab format.

The new system will see 12 projects from first-time filmmakers taken through an entire cycle of development. This will include support for all aspects of the creative process, from inception to the stage when they are ready to be introduced to the market. This replaces the previous model of developing an initial 12 projects for early development, and then...

The fourth annual London Underground Film Festival is the first edition of the fest to be run by new caretakers Daniel Fawcett and Clara Pais, two accomplished filmmakers. The festival will run November 14-17 at the legendary avant-garde media center, the Horse Hospital.

Fawcett and Pais have programmed a bold fest, which begins on the 14th with the London-based documentary Grasp the Nettle by Dean Puckett. The film follows the challenges faced by a group of land rights activists fighting for a piece of disused land in West London. Also on opening night is Randy Moore’s Escape From Tomorrow, which was filmed surreptitiously at Disneyland; and Táu by Daniel Castro Zimbrón.

Other films screening at the fest include the award winning doc A Body Without Organs, directed by Steven Graves; Alex Munt’s Warhol homage Poor Little Rich Girls (After Warhol); Irene Lusztig’s history of childbirth, The Motherhood...