Bloodletting: Graham McTavish Leads a Brutal Frontier Horror Nightmare

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Bloodletting movie still

The fort was supposed to be a refuge.

Graham McTavish is trading the castles, dragons and Scottish Highlands for something considerably nastier in Bloodletting, an upcoming supernatural horror film that drops its characters into the unforgiving American frontier.

Based on J.R. Curtis' novel of the same name, the film combines historical survival horror with psychological and creature horror, following a group of desperate frontiersmen who take shelter in an abandoned Army fort - only to discover that whatever is waiting inside may be worse than everything they were running from.

McTavish Plays a Man With Plenty of Baggage

McTavish takes the role of Mr. Buchanan, described as a grizzled gun-for-hire tormented by his past, which is probably a pretty natural fit for an actor who has spent much of his career playing intimidating, physically imposing characters, but Bloodletting gives him considerably more to work with than simply pointing a gun and looking miserable.

McTavish is best known for playing Dwalin in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, Dougal Mackenzie in Outlander and the Saint of Killers in Preacher, while his other credits include Rambo, Creed and House of the Dragon - McTavish is joined by Zach Roerig, Patrick Kilpatrick, Michael Aaron Milligan, Kateri Walker, Nathan Blair, Michael Hanson, Daniel Wheat and KateLynn E. Newberry.

The filmmakers have described the project as a mixture of psychological, creature and body horror, with the frontier setting providing the pressure cooker, and has been described The Revenant Meets The Thing

The production was also reportedly built the fort from scratch in Tyrone, Georgia, with the entire shoot completed in just 14 days, which is a surprisingly short production schedule for a creature horror film requiring period environments, multiple performers and practical effects.

The screenplay comes from J.R. Curtis, who also wrote the novel on which the film is based, and the film is directed by Scott B. Hansen and Ryan Shelor, with Shelor making his feature directing debut - Hansen previously directed horror films including Devour, Bad Candy and The Possession Experiment, while Bloodletting represents another step into creature and supernatural horror for the filmmaker.

Shelor has described the movie as a gritty, visceral story about characters pushed to the edge of humanity, which seems appropriate given that the whole premise involves starving, frightened men discovering that an abandoned fort is not actually abandoned enough.

Trailer

Release Date

There is currently no firm theatrical release date, although production material has been pointing toward a late-2026 arrival.