This past summer, movie fans mourned the death of 75-year-old actor Shelley Duvall. Best known for The Shining, Time Bandits, and plenty of other movies, she began to distance herself from acting in the early 2000s before famously retiring altogether after the 2002 independent film Manna from Heaven. But in 2022, she stunned everyone with the news that she’d come back to the screen once more in what’s now to be her last role ever.
That movie is The Forest Hills, which recently dropped its first trailer ahead of its early October release. In the film, Chiko Mendez plays Rico, a camper in the Catskill mountains who takes a blow to the head and ends up with weird, creepy visions he just can’t get out of his head. Eventually, his friend Billy (Edward Furlong) gets into Rico’s head that he might actually be turning into a werewolf, and it’s possible he’s not the only one that’s happening to. While grappling with the idea of that, Rico also has to confront his past, chiefly his strained relationship with his mother, played by Duvall.
Initially, Duvall was only meant to appear via a small flashback cameo, a la Pamela Voorhees in the original Friday the 13th. But as writer/director Scott Goldberg tells it, she talked about working with other actors on camera, so her role was beefed up as a result. “Being able to finally work with Shelley and be there in person, and actually film with her — she’s kind, sweet, gentle, and such an amazing actress,” he recalled. “Shelley was an amazing actress to work with, and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to direct her.”
The Forest Hills will hit select theaters on October 4, followed by streaming on October 8.
[via BloodyDisgusting]
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