Festival Day Films claims to have made the world’s first ‘river vampire’ horror film, Wild Swimmers, due for release in 2025.
In a river in England, an ancient evil is awake and feeding off Wild Swimmers. Trainee journalist Deji decides to investigate the mysterious killings, and, together with a photography student, they begin documenting the river. Evil, however, lives upstream – and the water soon turns red.
Hot off the back of their folk horror anthology Rewilding (2023), Festival Day Films have announced a vampire feature with a difference: in Wild Swimmers, the undead creature lives in the depths of a river.
Starring Valerie Kwok and Caroline Murray as investigators of the creature’s killings, the film has its origins in influences as varied as Silence of the Lambs, Zodiac, Salem’s Lot and The Wind in the Willows.
“The River Avon is a bit of a secret highway,” says director Ric Rawlins. “You can sail down it alone and feel a sense of stillness, with things getting wilder the further you travel from a city. It was incredibly tempting to try and capture this poetic space in a film, but also to spike it with visceral horror.
“In one sense it’s a classic horror movie: you have victims being picked off by a supernatural being, you have investigators racing against time to stop it. But the film is also exploring the tension between human relationships – how we try to own each other, or break away from being owned.”
Wild Swimmers also stars Richard Chivers (Rewilding) and Robin Bailes as the vampire.
The film is due for release in Spring 2025.
Bloody Flicks 