THE DAY/WILL BE SCARY

Another promising chiller is in the can. Directed by Tom Shankland, it sounds likely to be even more scary than his recent Waz.

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The different is that in this film the nasties are normal.

Yes, just two families getting together in the English countryside to celebrate the New Year’s Eve. What could be less frightening?

Until their children start falling ill, inexplicably, one by one and turn on their parents, forcing them into a vicious fight for survival, with shocking consequences.

Shankland spent five weeks filming in countryside snow with the kids but came away with his humour intact.

"The kids are gutted", he says. ("Gutted" only in a figurative sense, one assumes). "After getting to kill adults, they have had to get back to school."

The unfortunate adults included Jeremy Sheffield (Creep), Stephen Campbell-Moore (The History Boys), Eva Birthistle (main photo, in Loach's Ae Fond Kiss) and, making her big screen debut, Hollyoak’s soapstar Hannah Tointon (above).

The Day comes from the prolific Vertigo Films, the team behind Nick Love’s The Football Factory and Outlaw, and plans are for it to be released in late 2008.

Posted April 9, 2008.