Guy Soulsby, director of the award-winning horror short Devil Makes Work (2014), is about to release another short, God’s Kingdom, currently in post-production. It’s a film to look out for.
Soulsby cites Alan Parker’s Angel Heart (1987) and John Hillcoat’s The Road (2009) as influences, as well as Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015). He prefers “thought provoking intellectual works” to “gore filled scares,” and certainly the preview for God’s Kingdom suggests he’s made just such a film.
Check out the synopsis and the trailer:
JACK and ELLA travel alone, taking the path less trodden. Disheveled and dirty they keep away from people, towns and cities, off the grid. They are hiding, on the run, but from what and why? It’s unclear who ALEXANDER works for but what’s apparent is that violence is his forte; he is driven by a darker force to find the pair. It’s a game of cat and mouse, the hunter chases the hunted.
GODS_KINGDOM_TRAILER from Guy Soulsby – Director on Vimeo.
Soulsby shot on location around the Yorkshire Dales, and key scenes are filmed in the Cellarium at the medieval ruins of the Cistercian Fountains Abbey near Ripon in North Yorkshire. (I visited the abbey recently and aside from its beautiful surroundings, the genuinely uncanny Cellarium was definitely the highlight.)
The Cellarium at Fountains Abbey in God’s Kingdom
Horror fans might recognize this location: the finale of Omen III: The Final Conflict (Graham Baker, 1981) is played out against the backdrop of Fountains Abbey, and is partly shot, as is God’s Kingdom, in the Cellarium. On the DVD commentary, Baker noted that it was “very cold and very eerie” shooting at the ruined abbey.
More recently, unconventional tourists Tina (Alice Lowe) and Chris (Steve Oram) visited Fountains Abbey on their fateful journey across England in Ben Wheatley’s fantastic Sightseers (2012).
Alice Lowe and Steve Oram in Sightseers
Some more detail about God’s Kingdom: Established Films presents “GOD’S KINGDOM” a Found Studio production in association with Focus24. The film boasts a cast of well known British film and TV actors including Anthony Flanagan (The Terrors, The Red Riding Trilogy, Shameless), Alistair Petrie (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, The Night Manager, Rush, Mark Wingett (Snow White and the Huntsmen, Quadrophenia, The Bill), Paul Hurstfield (Dead Man’s Shoes), Jack Johns (Dog and the Elephant, Insomnia, Maigret Sets a Trap), Robert Goodman (Gangs of New York, Joan of Arc), Rod Glenn (American Assassin, Ripper Street), Amanda Foster (Fast and Furious 6, Edge of Tomorrow, Die Another Day), and introducing Leah Rhodes.
