French Supernatural Thriller Vinyan to Come

Posted by dominie in Films, News on August 19th, 2008

The French Horror-Thriller, Vinyan, is in the works and scheduled for a 2009 release in the US. Director Fabrice du Welz (Calvaire) co-wrote the screenplay with friend, Oliver Blackburn (Donkey Punch) and will star Rufus Sewell (The Holiday, The Illusionist), Emmanuelle Beart, (Disco, A Crime) Julie Dreyfus (Kill Bill: Vol. 1), and Borhan Du Welz (Calvaire). Bloody-Disgusting provides us with a synopsis:

“Still not having accepted the loss of their son in a tsunami disaster, Janet and Paul Behlmer are back in Bangkok. Hanging onto the fact that his body has never been discovered, Janet desperately clings to the idea that pirates might have kidnapped their kid in the confusion that followed the catastrophe. Looking for someone to guide them in the Thai underworld, they bribe their way to a mysterious Mr. Gao, who takes them to Ranong, where a mercenary supplies them with a boat and crew to explore the pirate-infested shores of Burma. Slowly, the will lose themselves into a strange child-infested jungle and to their inner demons.”

Vinyan has become one of the most anticipated foreign horror films of this year. Fans are expecting nothing less from Fabrice du Welz, whose first horror, Calvaire, was widely received in the 2006. In an interview, he told Bloody-Disgusting that Vinyan was not intended to be a horror film, that it is more of an experimentation to break clichés and find something new in the genre. “Its something between a ghost story and a psychological thriller. I’ve tried to settle Vinyan in a fine line, where the Behlmer’s couple slips down slowly into a strange, poetical and violent world… In a mainstream ghost story, the ghosts enter in the real world, in Vinyan, it’s the opposite. Here it’s the living people who enter into the ‘ghost’ world. A world infested by wild children, the quest of their obsessions…”

As for behind the scenes, Fabrice said, “Directing 150 Thais children covered with mud and who were hooked on trees was quite difficult—but a great experience” Fabrice’s first love is most definitely horror, but bloody and gory comes secondary in Vinyan, where style was the predominating objective. Fabrice du Welz is already working on his next project tentatively titled Coffin Island for US release that he hopes will go into lensing next year.