'The Reckoning', The Latest Horror Film From Director Neil Marshall, Heads To RLJ Entertainment And Shudder For 2021 Release

The Reckoning, the latest from The Descent director Neil Marshall, has found a home: RLJ Entertainment and horror streaming service Shudder have purchased the film for a 2021 release. The movie, which follows a woman falsely accused of being a witch, has had somewhat of a bumpy road. The project was originally set up at MoviePass Films (remember them?), and then, things got further bogged down when star and co-writer Charlotte Kirk, who is also dating Marshall, became embroiled in two Hollywood scandals.

RLJ Entertainment and Shudder have scooped up The Reckoning, a new movie from director Neil Marshall that the filmmaker co-wrote with Charlotte Kirk

and Edward Evers-Swindell. Kirk also stars in the film, leading a cast that includes Joe Anderson, Steven Waddington, and Sean Pertwee. Here's the synopsis:

THE RECKONING follows Grace Haverstock (Kirk), a young widow, haunted by the recent suicide of her husband Joseph (Anderson), who is falsely accused of being a witch by her jealous Landlord, Squire Pendleton (Steven Waddington, The Imitation Game), after she rejects his unwanted advances. Grace must endure physical persecution at the hands of England's most ruthless witch-hunter Judge Moorcroft (Pertwee) and face her own inner demons as the Devil himself starts to work his way into her mind.

Back in 2018, it was announced that MoviePass Films would be releasing The Reckoning. But as we all know, MoviePass is no more, so that didn't happen. Since then, The Reckoning has attracted plenty of attention – but it's not exactly the type of attention the folks involved with the film probably hoped for. Marshall and Kirk have been embroiled in a series of scandals in Hollywood, and while we don't know all the details, here's how Variety sums things up:

Kirk [is] at the center of two Hollywood sex scandals, which led to the ouster of NBCUniversal Vice Chairman Ron Meyer and Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara. Kirk has been accused, with her finance, of seeking to extort millions in payments in exchange for their silence about Kirk's sexual misconduct allegations. They deny the allegations. Kirk appeared most recently in Marshall's horror film, "The Reckoning," which she also co-wrote.

Things got so heated that Marshall pulled out of a Q&A for the film that was set to follow its debut during this year's Fantasia International Film Festival. Despite all of this, I remain interested in seeing The Reckoning, as I'm a big fan of Marshall's The Descent. A full release date isn't available just yet, but the plan is for the flick to be released in 2021 in the US via RLJ Entertainment, and then for it to hit the streaming service Shudder.