It was back at the end of the past century when Guillermo del Toro was starting his career in Hollywood and Mira Sorvino was an emerging star that they worked together in a horror sci-fi movie called Mimic (1997), with a then-unknown Doug Jones playing one of the mutated creatures. Over 2 decades after, with Sorvino’s stardom in the unknown and Jones’ being one of the most notorious monster and creature performer, the two meet up again in psychological thriller Beneath the Leaves (2019).
In it, in a rush of disappearances, four small-town boys are kidnapped by James Whitley, a deranged, warm-eyed psychopath. His grotesque pursuit to reunite orphaned children with their deceased birth parents is gridlocked when the boys escape and he is arrested. Twenty years later, Whitley flees during a prison fire and decides to see his mission through. Detective Larson, one of Whitley’s prior victims – and now a cop – is removed from the case due to impartiality leaving his partner and lover, Detective Shotwell to solve the case. Fueled by rage and a chance of redemption, Detective Larson chases the steadfast psychopath on his own, only to fall back into the same trap he once escaped as a child.
Beneath the Leaves (2019) is based on a story by debutant director Adam Marino. Naman Barsoom and Daniel Wallner were the authors of the screenplay. Besides Mira Sorvino playing Detective Erica Shotwell and Doug Jones being the madman James Whitley, Melora Walters, Kristoffer Polaha, Christopher Masterson, Paul Sorvino, Don Swayze, Ser’Darius Blain, Jena Sims, Christopher Backus, Lili Bordán, Tom Proctor and Marla Adams also star.
The movie is scheduled to be released in the USA in February this year, although no further international releases have been announced yet. The official YouTube channel of Vertical Entertainment US released recently the official trailer for Beneath the Leaves (2019), and you can watch it here:
