Damian Maffei leads new supernatural horror movie Sundown about a family haunted by the past
Sundown is an upcoming supernatural horror movie that follows a family dealing with loss, but instead of focusing only on the emotional side of mourning, it explores what happens when grief starts to blur the line between reality and something far more terrifying – Sundown will make its world premiere this August at Mad Monster Party in North Carolina before also screening at the Houston Horror Film Festival.
A Haunting That May Be More Than Grief
Sundown follows Mary, a woman who has recently lost her husband after his battle with dementia, and following his death, Mary begins claiming that his spirit is still haunting their home, and while she believes something supernatural is happening, her estranged son Chris sees things differently, As Chris thinks his mother is just struggling with the pain of losing her husband.
To prove that there is a logical explanation behind what she is experiencing, he arrives at the house with his filmmaker friend Bill and a spiritualist named Clarissa, hoping to document what is really happening and convince Mary that the haunting is only in her mind, but their investigation quickly takes a darker turn.
The trailer plays with the idea of whether the haunting is real or whether the characters are dealing with something psychological, where it starts with a quiet, unsettling atmosphere before slowly building into more intense supernatural horror, suggesting that the family may have opened the door to something they cannot control.
The movie stars Damian Maffei (The Strangers: Prey at Night, Haunt), Emily Sweet (V/H/S/95, Castle Freak), Chris Alexander, Kelly Waters, Erich Rausch, and Michael Leavy (Terrifier, Stream).
Sundown is directed by Marcus Slabine (The Dark Offerings) and Brian Klingborg, who also wrote the screenplay, and according to Slabine, the script immediately caught his attention because of the way it balanced character drama with horror.
The second I read Brian’s script, I knew I wanted to direct it,” Slabine said. “It had everything I love about horror: grounded characters, mounting tension, and a mystery that keeps getting darker the deeper you go.
The director also explained that the team wanted the found footage style to feel realistic rather than relying only on cheap scares.
When found footage is done right, we wanted every scare to feel earned and every performance to feel real, so when the horror finally hits, it hits hard.
The film also has an interesting real-life connection behind its story, as Klingborg revealed that the idea for Sundown came from an unsettling experience shared by Chris Alexander involving a death in his own family.
The inspiration for Sundown came from a true story that Chris shared with me about a death in his family,” Klingborg explained. “The strange and unsettling events surrounding that experience stayed with me and became the foundation for the screenplay.
Adding another strange connection to the production, the filmmakers ended up filming the movie in the same house where the real events that inspired the story reportedly took place – one to keep an eye on!
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