"Absolutely nothing transpired, buddy! You're astonishingly easy to rile up," remarks a character in the newly unveiled trailer by Dark Sky Films for their dark and degenerate road trip horror flick titled A Desert. Marking the feature directorial bow of filmmaker Joshua Erkman, this film made its debut at the prestigious 2024 Tribeca Film Festival and later played at FrightFest, Splat!FilmFest, and the Sitges Film Festival during the autumn of the same year. The chilling narrative will soon haunt theaters come May.
An aging photographer, whose glory days seem but a distant memory, embarks on a road trip across the rugged Southwest, yearning to recapture the magic and triumph of his earlier work. Instead, he's hurled into the dark, turbulent depths of America, inadvertently dragging his wife and a shady private detective into a harrowing nightmare. Starring David Yow as Harold, the film also boasts an ensemble cast including Kai Lennox, Sarah Lind, Zachary Ray Sherman, Rob Zabrecky, and Ashley B. Smith (appearing twice, presumably a typographical error intended for different actors with similar names). The eerie score is composed by Ty Segall.
Garnering mostly favorable reviews, critics have hailed, "Erkman's gritty thriller seamlessly fuses Hitchcockian mystery with the urban horror chills reminiscent of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre..." This film looks utterly terrifying.
A once-renowned photographer, now enduring his least popular and least productive years, decides to undertake a soul-searching road trip through the American Southwest. However, what begins as a quest to rekindle his lost inspiration gradually morphs into a surreal, harrowing ordeal. A Desert, a horror film directed by American genre specialist Joshua Erkman, marks his feature directorial debut following a plethora of acclaimed music videos and horror short films. The screenplay is penned by Bossi Baker and Joshua Erkman, with Hugues Barbier, Joshua Erkman, Justin Timms, and Joe Yanick serving as producers.
After its premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, Dark Sky Films will unleash Erkman's A Desert in select US theaters starting May 2nd, 2025. Are you intrigued by this film? Do you have the courage to watch it?
