‘Wildling’ Trailer: Bel Powley Goes Horror In The Diary of a Teenage Werewolf

Any good coming of age story needs a great hook to differentiate it from the sea of coming of age movies. So, what separates the upcoming film “Wildling” from the bunch? It’s a horror movie about a girl who may or may not be a werewolf. Sign me up, immediately.

The film premiered at SXSW earlier this month just after IFC Midnight picked it up. “Wildling” seems like a natural fit for the horror distribution company. A few of their previous films include horror hits like “The Babadook,” “The Autopsy of Jane Doe,” and “Room 237.”

The full synopsis sets up the sufficiently creepy premise.

A teenage girl’s coming of age comes with a terrifying twist in this spellbinding take on the werewolf legend. Since birth, Anna has been raised in isolation by a man she knows only as Daddy who has done everything possible to conceal the truth about the girl’s origins from her. But when the teenage Anna is suddenly thrust into the real world under the protection of no-nonsense police officer Ellen, it soon becomes clear that the young woman is far from ordinary. Unable to adjust to a normal life, Anna finds herself drawn instead to the wild freedom of the forest while struggling to resist the growing bloodlust that has awakened inside her. This moodily atmospheric thriller combines supernatural scares with a myth-like tale of self-discovery.

The film stars “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” breakout Bel Powley along with Liv Tyler, Mike Faist, and Brad Dourif. “Wildling” marks the feature-length directorial debut of Fritz Böhm. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Florian Eder.

Böhm comes from a production heavy background with several producing, special effects, and production credits.

When speaking with Deadline about the making of the film, he said “when I tackled “Wildling,” everything I had learned in that capacity really came in handy, especially since we didn’t have a lot of money, we didn’t have a lot of time. We had a very challenging schedule, with 23 shooting days, but we had kids, and water, and animals, and special-effects makeup.”

“Wildling” simultaneously drops on VOD and select cities on April 13.