Sophie Turner and Kit Harington reunite on screen this week in “The Dreadful,” a medieval-set gothic horror film that flips their well-known “Game of Thrones” dynamic into a romance and leans into the discomfort for publicity. The film opened in select U.S. theaters and hit digital platforms on Feb. 20 through Lionsgate, with UK distribution handled by True Brit Entertainment.
Turner and Harington have leaned into the awkwardness of playing lovers after years of being associated with sibling roles, especially as behind-the-scenes footage of a kissing scene spread online this week. In interviews tied to the release, Turner described the experience as “really weird,” while both actors joked about gagging after the take, playing to fans who still see them through the lens of their earlier series.
Writer-director Natasha Kermani has framed the project as a long-gestating period horror built around women trapped at society’s edge. In one recent interview, she said she had carried the script “for years,” and recalled “no’s” from financiers wary of historical settings before Turner signed on, which helped move the project into production. Kermani has also described the film as taking inspiration from the same Buddhist parable that informed Kaneto Shindō’s 1964 classic “Onibaba,” using that starting point to focus on an older woman and a younger woman whose dependence begins to fracture.
Set in 15th-century England during the Wars of the Roses, “The Dreadful” follows Anne (Turner) living in isolation with her mother-in-law Morwen (Marcia Gay Harden) as a man from Anne’s past returns from war and a curse gathers force around a mysterious knight. Kermani said the team shot on location in Cornwall and built the central hut like a medieval structure, leaving cast and crew exposed to winter weather.
