‘And They Shall Handle Serpents’ Poster Teases A New Kind of Religious Horror [Exclusive]
Anticipated new psychological horror short And They Shall Handle Serpents now has a deeply creepy official poster, and the filmmakers, director Stuart Valberg (Megrim, #Pizzagate) and writer Jason Tostevin (‘Til Death, Born Again) are sharing it exclusively with Dread Central.
The poster features a large white cross made of grimy, obsessively assembled cassette tapes on an endless black background. A red glow lights the cross, shifting the religious symbol into something nefarious. Above it, the poster’s mysterious tagline, “Deliver us some evil,” clearly plays with the line from the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from evil.” Together, the overall effect is a sense of looming danger hiding behind the everyday.
Valberg and Tostevin are keeping specifics under wraps ahead of the short’s premiere later this year, but did give us some tantalizing clues. The short, Valberg says, “tells the unnerving story of a deranged food delivery driver who presents his unwitting customers with a deadly test of faith.”
“It is scary in part because of how timely it is. We have been telling people it’s ‘based on a soon-to-be-true story’,” adds Tostevin.
The only other tidbit the duo shared was that the short is anchored by an “incredibly unsettling” lead performance by Samuel Dunning (The Equalizer, Blue Bloods).
Now, check out the haunting new poster:
And They Shall Handle Serpents grew out of mutual admiration between the two festival favorite filmmakers, who bonded over each other’s work after meeting at Nightmares Film Festival. Valberg is a Hollywood assistant director who has worked for David Fincher on TV series like Mindhunter, and Zack Snyder on blockbuster features including Army of the Dead. Tostevin is a multi-optioned writer/director whose work has been featured everywhere from Short of the Week to The New York Times. The duo set out to collaborate on a new film, which eventually became And They Shall Handle Serpents.
The film is expected to debut in late summer or early fall 2025.
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