Following its world premiere at Cinequest this Spring and several festival and market stops thereafter director Michael Peterson’s new movie, Knuckleball, now has a home in Canada. Word from ScreenAnarchy notes of the film’s acquisition at Raven Banner with a Fall release in tow ahead of the film’s upcoming Fantasia premiere on Saturday.
Peterson is hosting the screening with composers David Arcus and Michelle Osis, and cast members Michael Ironside and Munro Chambers who reunite once more following RKSS’s Turbo Kid. Also starring are Kathleen Munroe and young lead actor Luca Villacis who get mention in the current festival description from Matthew Kiernan who brings some stunning highlights to consider:
Somewhere in western Canada is a farmhouse. A seemingly ordinary and simple farmhouse with a seemingly nice and normal farmer named Jacob (Michael Ironside) residing within. There would be no reason to fear this farmhouse, but for Mary (Kathleen Munroe) it’s a farmhouse that harbours bad memories and a real sense of dread. Now, a family emergency forces her to drop her son Henry (Luca Villacis) off at this farmhouse for a few days with Jacob, her father, who doesn’t know his own grandson. A love of baseball helps the two bond, but that connection is broken by the arrival of Dixon (Munro Chambers of TURBO KID), the creepy next-door neighbour who seems to know a lot about the farmhouse and holds a pretty mean grudge against Henry. Over the course of the next few days, Henry is going to learn a lot about family, about survival, and how to throw a good knuckleball like his life depends on it? because it does.
This twisted, nasty thriller is not the movie you’d expect from director Mike Peterson based off his last feature, the LARPing comedy LLOYD THE CONQUEROR (a Fantasia 2012 selection), and that element of surprise suits KNUCKLEBALL well. This is one of those movies where you think you know everything going in, but trust us, you don’t, and by the time it finishes you’ll feel like you got hit by a… well, you know. Graced with a terrific cast (Chambers effectively shakes his DEGRASSI image here) and excellent cinematography from Jon Thomas, KNUCKLEBALL is a smart, efficient genre exercise that consistently surprises and delivers plenty of suspense. It may be (thankfully) warm outside right now, but KNUCKLEBALL reminds you that there’s nothing like frosty Canadian landscapes filled with deadly intentions to truly send a chill up your spine.
Raven Banner is known for snagging its share of unique, rousing horror genre titles with global appeal. From the looks of things, Knuckleball suits their m.o. pretty darn well, and with a film marking quite a change of pace for Peterson, as well as Chambers who is best known for his jubilant, 80s-enthusiast protagonist role in Turbo Kid.
“The enthusiasm and genre expertise of Raven Banner is the perfect fit for Knuckleball,” says writer/director Peterson. “We’re looking forward to releasing the film in Canada with them.”
Read the press release in full at ScreenAnarchy.
