A moody, haunting Rosemary’s Baby for the 21st century, SHELLEY is an arty, atmospheric horror film that blends the shocks of Inside with the surreal, unsettling worldview of David Lynch.

Starring
Ellen Dorrit Petersen (Blind, Into the Dark)
Cosmina Stratan (Beyond the Hills)
Peter Christoffersen (The Bridge TV series)
Björn Andrésen (Death In Venice)

Directed by
Ali Abbasi (Directorial debut)

When Elena arrives in the countryside to work as a housekeeper for Louise and Kasper, she finds the isolated cottage deep in a dense, eerie forest, cut off from modern society. Soon, Louise approaches Elena with a lucrative deal: begging her to carry a baby for her as she is unable to conceive, and desperately yearns for a child.

Elena’s pregnancy brings joy into the cold, dark home, but it isn’t long until strange events, sensations and hallucinations lead the household to believe that something is terribly wrong. The life growing inside Elena is taking shape too fast, and bringing an evil force like no other.

Recalling the art house horror of films like We Are What We Are, and delivering the straight ahead chills of the evil baby genre, SHELLEY is a film loaded with portent, as a Romanian maid is chosen to be a surrogate for a well-off couple living in isolation in the woods.

Debut director Ali Abbasi, an Iranian based in Europe, shot the film at a wonderful lakeside house in Sweden, that echoes the great horror film locations of yore, including the Overlook Hotel in The Shining and the Amityville house – are the buildings imbued with something sinister, or the people?

Abbasi’s script has the icy psychological insight of an Ingmar Bergman film, and his use of sound design and music (by composer Martin Dirkov) mixes the organic and electronic to layer the film with a sense of dread.

With compelling central performances from Cosmina Stratan and Ellen Dorrit Petersen, this is not a film for the faint-hearted – and definitely not recommended for expectant mothers!