‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Star Chloe Pirrie Leads SXSW-Bound Psycho-Thriller ‘Kryptic,’ First Clip Unveiled (EXCLUSIVE)

Chloe Pirrie (“The Queen’s Gambit’) headlines psycho-thriller “Kryptic,” which will have its world premiere at SXSW’s Midnighter strand. A first clip has been unveiled for the film.

The film follows Kay (Pirrie), who is in trouble. A strange encounter in the woods has left her with no memory. Only one thing is certain: she is the spitting image of missing monster hunter, Barb Valentine. When an intruder breaks into her house, she runs, with no idea where she’s going; but she knows her only chance to reconnect is to shed more light onto Barb’s mysterious disappearance. Random encounters seem to point her in the right direction, but what was hoped to be a journey of self-discovery gradually becomes a hunt for the monster itself.

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Written by Paul Bromley (“Ouija”), the film is directed by Kourtney Roy (“Slice of Heaven”). The cast also includes Jeff Gladstone (“Resident Alien”) and Jason Deline (“The Night Agent”). It is produced by Amber Ripley, Sophie Venner and Josh Huculiak. XYZ Films executive produce and are selling the world excluding Canada.

“When I was a kid I was scared of going into the forest. I felt like it (or something in it) was always watching me. The forest was an unobserved observer, not necessarily a malevolent one, but neither was it your fairy godmother. Then, as I grew up, the home became a potentially scarier place. Domesticity, civilization, all those ordering systems intended to make us safe and protect us from unknown dangers beyond the backyard somehow became inverted for me, rendering the domestic realm an ominous place of unmentionable dread and anxiety. In this sense ‘Kryptic’ is a natural extension of my photographic universe; a universe of other, unsettling lives running contiguous to my own; a saturated, colorful place that can be weird and dark, but where there is always a streak of humor running through the dense, inky black,” Roy said in the director’s statement.

“The world is a fantastic place, full of strange and wondrous things, but when you peel back the fine membrane a whole other realm is revealed, teeming with sparkle and beauty… and troubling things, too. That’s why I really love mundane stuff: suburbia, white picket fences, Christmas decorations, motel parking lots. They are nice and decent, but they’re also disturbing. They can quickly turn strange and become other. ‘Kryptic’ was shot in and around Hope, BC, my favourite town in Canada. There is something about its cheap hotels, tacky bars, blue-plate diners and derelict trailer parks that make my heart skip a beat. The film is an ode to all those seemingly innocuous things that potentially also pose terrible danger: the shards of glass in the glistening grass, the unseen monster watching you from the winsome woods, the gnawing teeth behind a sugary smile,” Roy added.

Watch the clip here:

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