Horror fans rejoice! After being removed from Netflix, where it was originally released in 2016 following its premiere at SXSW that year, Mike Flanagan‘s edge-of-your-seat thriller, “Hush,” is finally receiving a U.S. theatrical release. This news comes a month after it was announced that the film would also get its first physical release on 4K, featuring both a restored version of the original cut, as well as a new black-and-white “Shush Cut” with remixed audio, which premiered at Beyond Fest on September 27. The film is also now available to stream on Shudder.
“Hush” was co-written by Flanagan’s wife and longtime collaborator, Katie Siegel, who also stars in the film. She plays a deaf writer who retreats to the woods to work in solitude, only to find herself under attack by a masked killer. Known for its unique and chilling soundscape, the film toggles back and forth between the silence Siegel’s character endures and the noises from her assailant she is unable to hear. It uses a similar approach to the 1966 play “Wait Until Dark,” which was later adapted into a 1967 film starring Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman facing a home invasion who uses the lack of light to her advantage. “Hush” itself was remade twice in India in 2019 as the Hindi-language film “Khamoshi” and the Tamil-language feature “Kolaiyuthir Kaalam.”
The 4K restoration and remastering of “Hush” was conducted by Shout! Studios, in collaboration with Flanagan and the film’s original producers, Intrepid Pictures and Blumhouse Productions, who will also all handle both the physical media release and the theatrical engagement, which begins October 16 at 6:30pm PT/9:30pm ET. Following the screening that night at Vidiots in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, Flanagan and Siegel will take part in an in-person Q&A there that will be livestreamed to select theaters around the country.
In addition to Siegel, the film also stars John Gallagher Jr. (“10 Cloverfield Lane”), Samantha Sloyan (“Midnight Mass”), and Michael Trucco (“The Fall of the House of Usher”). The husband and wife duo have more reasons to celebrate this year as Flanagan’s most recent outing, an adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Life of Chuck,” won the coveted People’s Choice Award at Toronto International Film Festival, and Siegel’s directorial debut, a short called “Stowaway” featured in “V/H/S Beyond,” is now streaming on Shudder following its premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.
In describing “Stowaway” during a recent interview with IndieWire, Siegel said, “Like Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis,’ it’s that human experience of waking up in a body you don’t recognize and asking, ‘Are we our bodies, or are we our minds?’ It’s a very esoteric and fertile ground, and I think it speaks to the female experience in the way that perhaps the linear, running away from the slow-moving monster speaks more to the male experience.”
Shout! Studios will release “Hush” in select U.S. theaters on October 16.
