We Have Always Lived In The Castle
Executive Produced by 2-time Academy Award Winner Michael Douglas (Wall Street, Ant-Man)
From the writer behind Netflix hit The Haunting of Hill House
Featuring an A-List Cast!
Crispin Glover
(Back To The Future) |
Sebastian Stan
(Avengers Infinity War, I Tonya) |
Alexandra Daddario
(True Detective, Baywatch) |
Taissa Farmiga
(The Nun, The Mule) |
Based on the critically acclaimed novel “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” by Shirley Jackson
Selected Press Coverage
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"A sharp, demented fairy tale"
"Sharply channels the author's atmosphere of dread, paranoia, and isolation, making the past feel prescient."
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"Beautifully Disturbing"
"Electrifying...the central performances are riveting"
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“Farmiga and Daddario both give the sisters their all, their expressive eyes and porcelain features never utilized better visually, but summoning ferocious passion underneath, making every scene teeter on the edge of explosion.”
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"Stan brings Charles to a place we’ve seen Stan go before, and it’s still very difficult to watch, but it’s an excellent reminder that he can do more than the Winter Soldier."
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Director's Statement
Director Stacie Passon
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Some of our best authors and filmmakers — Hitchcock, Joyce Carol Oates, AM Holmes, Jonathan Lethem, Stephen King — all believe Shirley Jackson’s WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE is a nightmarish masterpiece. For more than 50 years, devotees have known it as “the one about the girl who killed her parents for sending her to her room.”
I read CASTLE first when I was in high school. It is smart, suspenseful, dark satire. The story, narrated by an 18-year old sociopathic girl named Merricat Blackwood, is a rich mix of American political and social commentary. The themes of isolation, gender, class warfare seem even more relevant today. Merricat is herself privileged, and charmingly pathological — sort of a cross between Daria and Lizzie Borden. Her sister, Constance is the other half of Shirley Jackson’s brain — kind, nurturing and world weary. At its heart, it’s a home invasion story. Merricat will stop at nothing to protect her castle from the interlopers who threaten her little utopia. The film is a strange fairy tale except at the end the prince runs away, the castle is burned down, and the girls choose to live happily ever after in squalor rather than face the harsh world outside. It is smart, hand-crafted genre — like BLACK SWAN, THE BABADOOK, HEAVENLY CREATURES and THE WITCH. Visually, I am inspired by the modernist paintings of Edward Hopper. Also, the cinematography of Ernest Haller (Rebel Without A Cause, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, Alfred Hitchcock Presents) and Boris Kaufmann (Twelve Angry Men, Splendor In The Grass) who helped craft some of the most visually specific American films of the late 50’s. In that tradition, the film with have the tailored, gothic look of the period, but will feel modern and updated. |
Executive Producer- Michael Douglas
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An actor with over forty years of experience in theatre, film, and television, Michael Douglas branched out into independent feature production in 1975 with the Academy Award-winning "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".
Since then, as an actor-producer, he has shown an uncanny knack for choosing projects that reflect changing trends and public concerns. Over the years, he has been involved in such controversial and politically influential pictures as "The China Syndrome" “Traffic”, and such popular films as "Fatal Attraction" and "Romancing the Stone". |
ABOUT THE FILM:
We Have Always Lived In the Castle
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Directed by Stacie Passon
Prebook: 6/4/2019 Street: 7/2/2019 UPC: 602573752784 DVD Category# PRDVD4520 SRP: $19.99 Merricat and Constance Blackwood live with their Uncle Julian in a stately manor. They are ostracized by the local villagers who feel the Blackwoods are a blight on the community. The three are the only survivors of an arsenic poisoning that killed everyone else in the family five years prior. Now, Constance remains in the house, afraid to face the outside world and the persecution she suffered as a suspect for murder. Merricat is bold, imaginative and wise beyond her years.
Merricat dares to venture into town regardless of public opinion, and protects the vast family property with a series of totems, charms and incantations. Despite being hated and feared by the townspeople around them, the two sisters and their uncle live a somewhat idyllic life - that is until Charles, a family cousin, arrives. Charles offers to help the sisters manage the house, but he also inquiries about the family’s financial affairs and interferes in Merricat’s daily routine. As Constance grows closer in confidence and friendship with Charles, Merricat resists this “demon” that has violated their perfect world. As Charles and Merricat battle for control, tragedy threatens to strike again, and the fate of the house and the family legacy hangs in the balance. Part murder mystery, and part haunted house, CASTLE is an adaptation of the classic 1962 novel by Shirley Jackson. |
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