The anticipated supernatural horror film Soul To Keep, co-directed by David Allensworth and Monière, will have its world premiere at Shriekfest on Saturday October 6th in Hollywood. The Cast and Crew will be in attendance. Read on for more details and to watch the film's trailer.
Soul To Keep tells the story of Beelzebub, a demon hell-bent on consuming and taking control of souls, who hunts down siblings and their lifelong friends at a rundown country house.
“Soul to Keep is a great possession horror film that uses a deaf character to uniquely tell the story,” says Shriekfest’s festival director Denise Gossett. “This is a film that horror fans are going to love and we are thrilled to be showing our first ever open captioned film!” she adds.
The introduction of a deaf lead character, Tara, played by deaf actress Sandra Mae Frank, allows the exploration of unique modalities in the narrative style, notably the use of sign language throughout the film. All the actors flawlessly learnt and incorporated the sign language into their performances to serve the purpose of the story. This inclusive aspect of the unrepresented Deaf Community makes the production accessible to hard-of-hearing audiences as well as creating a dialogue between the Deaf and Hearing populations.
“The Deaf element in this film came to me originally as something of a scare tactic, and it blossomed into an important statement about bringing communities together,” says director David Allensworth. “Our co-writer Eric Bram’s wife is partially deaf, as well as one of our producers, Matt Meyer, who has partial hearing loss.”
“I wanted to bring out the elements of a minority group – the deaf and hard at hearing – and showcase them as heroes. In addition, I wanted to tell a horror story with real proven metaphysical elements, not another horror-slasher film,” adds co-director Monière.
Soul To Keep showcases an ensemble cast composed of eight up-and-coming actors: Sandra Mae Frank (Tara), Aurora Heimbach (Erin), Kate Rose Reynolds (Grace), Tony Spitz (Josh), Craig Fogel (Freddy), Jordan Theodore (Brandon), Derek Long (Toby) and Jessie Jordan (Kimberly). Soul To Keep is a Shady Tree Films and Cineque Pictures production. Directed by David Allensworth and Monière. Written by Eric Bram and David Allensworth. Produced by Patrick Kendall, p.g.a., Monière, David Allensworth, p.g.a., and Matt Meyer. Co-Produced by Bears Rebecca Fonté and Rachel Morgan. Cinematograph
y by Eric Giovon. Sound Design by Angelo Panetta. Music Composed by Irv Johnson. Editing by Ray Chung. Production Design by Lisa Ramsey. Visual Effects by Carlos Aldana.