After making waves at Sundance with his controversial horror pic The Woman -- in which a suburban family man imprisons a feral woman in his basement, with disastrous results -- director Lucky McKee (May, The Woods, Red) will finally unveil his film in theaters this October. And with a release date finally set, distributor The Collective has debuted a brand new trailer that sets a slightly gentler domestic tableau for the titular woman to completely ravage with her female fury.
The Woman garnered strong reactions upon its Sundance debut, where one audience member reportedly fainted and another stuck around after the closing credits to publicly berate McKee for his film. Movieline spoke with McKee following the screening, acknowledging The Woman's difficult subject matter. On October 14, horror hounds will have their chance to see for themselves if the film's a necessarily brutal meditation on misogyny and man's monstrous capabilities, or otherwise, as McKee's irate Sundance citizen critic declared.
Check out the new trailer for another look at the film, which is co-adapted by Jack Ketchum from his own story and stars Sean Bridgers as Chris Cleek, Angela Bettis as his wife, and Pollyanna McIntosh as the titular Woman.
Full synopsis for The Woman:
Directed by Lucky McKee, based on the bestselling novel by Jack Ketchum, written Ketchum and McKee by and produced by Andrew van den Houten and Robert Tonino for MODERNCINÉ, THE WOMAN is a disturbing tale of torture and dirty little secrets that can haunt any seemingly harmless neighborhood. The story follows a successful country lawyer who captures and attempts to "civilize" the last remaining member of a violent clan that has roamed the Northeast in the wild for decades, thereby putting the lives of his family in extreme jeopardy.
Starring Pollyanna McIntosh, Sean Bridgers and Angela Bettis, the film prompted furious debates and walkouts during its world premiere in the Park City at Midnight program at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Reports surfaced of people becoming sick while watching the graphic scenes and one irate Sundance audience member went so far as to say THE WOMAN "ought to be confiscated, burned. There's no value in showing this to anyone." Whether a "wonderfully bizarre tale" or an "inhumane degradation of women," you'll have to decide for yourself.