Michael Madsen must face strange cult rituals in “Waking Karma”

Michael Madsen gained big popularity thanks to his participation in Quentin Tarantino’s masterpieces Reservoir Dogs (1992), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), and The Hateful Eight (2015), but he has dedicated most of his career in working in b-movies reaching his participation to over 300 titles. Waking Karma (2023) is one of those movies, a horror thriller with cult rituals and sacrifices.

The movie centers on Karma, a 17 years old girl who wants to avoid being anything like her long-absent cult leader father, Paul de Grendel (incarnated by Michael Madsen), known for his efforts to discover a route to immortality via dangerous reincarnation ceremonies. When Karma’s young single mom, Sunny, suddenly finds out that Paul is back in town to collect his daughter, the two flee to a friend’s secure compound retreat. But their plans go awry when Paul tracks them down and imprisons them there. Over a 12-hour period, he puts Karma through a sequence of escalating tests intended to break her spirit and awaken her cruelty so he can use her body as a vessel into which his soul can reincarnate. But his efforts to transform his daughter end up creating a version of her that neither of them expected.

This is the debut feature film for the tandem of directors Carlos Montaner and Liz Fania Werner, who is also the writer of the screenplay.

Besides Michael Madsen, Hannah Christine Shetler, Kimberly Alexander, Bradley Fisher, Christine Sloane, and Christopher Showerman form the main cast.

Waking Karma (2023) is releasing digitally on January 27, 2023. Watch its trailer here.