“Phantom Thread” star Vicky Krieps is deepening her onscreen presence with a haunting ghost story, “Went Up the Hill.” Titled after the nursery song (the lead characters are Jack and Jill), the feature centers on Krieps’ character, who for the first time meets her stepson after Krieps loses her wife to suicide. In her grief, the two each become possessed by the spirit of Krieps’ dead wife.
The intense trailer, which you can watch below, sums up the premise with the tagline, “Three Souls. Two Bodies.” The official synopsis reads: “Abandoned as a child, Jack (Dacre Montgomery) travels to remote New Zealand to attend the funeral of his estranged mother Elizabeth. There he meets her widow, Jill (Krieps), who has questions of her own. Over the nights that follow, Elizabeth returns and possesses Jack and Jill, using each of their bodies to speak to the other. Jill faces Elizabeth’s suicide, while Jack confronts his abandonment. As they learn she is trapped in limbo, Jack begins to doubt Elizabeth’s reason for returning. Caught in a life-threatening nocturnal dance, Jack and Jill must find a way to let go of Elizabeth’s hold before she pushes them to the edge.”
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Samuel Van Grinsven (“Sequin in a Blue Room”) writes and directs “Went Up the Hill.” The psychological drama also stars Sarah Peirse. Vicky Pope, Samantha Jennings, and Kristina Ceyton, who have been behind films like “Talk to Me” and “The Babadook,” are producers on the project.
“Went Up the Hill” premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was acquired by Greenwich Entertainment.
The IndieWire review cited how the themes of possession, both literally and emotionally, drive the feature. “Whether you believe in possession will likely dictate how far you’re willing to ride with ‘Went Up the Hill,’ and while Van Grinsven and co-writer Jory Anast struggle to unspool some key elements of said possession (though the ‘rules’ of it eventually snap into place in the final act, a big help), Krieps and Montgomery sell the hell out of it,” the review reads.
Greenwich Entertainment will release “Went Up the Hill” in theaters August 15. Check out the trailer below.
