Festival Predictions

2021 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Simon Barrett’s Seance

Published on November 23, 2020

A writer on horror items such as Horrible Way to Die (201), You’re Next (2011), three segments in the V/H/S projects and another Adam Wingard project in The Guest (2014), Simon Barrett made the big move behidn the camera for his directorial debut back in October of 2019. Seance sees Barrett team with fresh off Sundance with Possessor Cinematographer Karim Hussain, the helmer proposes an American-British horror film starring Suki Waterhouse, Madisen Beaty and Inanna Sarkis.

Gist: Set in an all-girls boarding school haunted by a vengeful spirit, Waterhouse plays Camille, a young woman who arrives at the Fairfield Academy following one of the student’s untimely and violent death.

Production Co./Producers: Russell Ackerman, Isaac Clements, Tomas Deckaj, John Schoenfelder.

Prediction: MIDNIGHT

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. Hanway.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).