A new horror film will soon rise from the lake to bring terror to theaters and digital platforms in March and Collider has an exclusive first look at the chilling official poster. The film in question is Bloat, a new J-horror distributed by Lionsgate that features Gotham star Ben McKenzie and Edge of Darkness alum Bojana Novakovic as parents of a young boy who discover something horrifically wrong with him after a near-drowning accident. He's become possessed by a chilling demon lurking in the depths of the murky water, leaving the couple in a race against time to save him before his soul is lost forever. The key art offers the first glimpse at what McKenzie and Novakovic are dealing with, as it depicts a hunched-over creature with hollowed eyes ready to haunt the unfortunate visitors to its domain.
Hailing from Tokyo-based director Pablo Absento, Bloat takes place in Japan where a mother (Bojana) and her two sons are on vacation while her husband (McKenzie) is on deployment with the military in Turkey. The near drowning of their son derails both their plans, however, particularly when it becomes clear he's now the host to a legendary demon from a lake. Their desperate attempts to save him are put in further jeopardy when the creature starts lashing out and tearing the family apart as it seeks to destroy everything in its path. It promises to be an emotional, yet haunting feature about a tight-knit unit threatening to collapse in on itself when faced with an unnatural terror.
Absento makes her feature debut with Bloat after a series of successes in short filmmaking. Her first time behind the camera, 2013's Call My Name, was a hit on the festival circuit, while her most recent short from 2016, SHI, earned high marks from horror maestros Guillermo del Toro, Eli Roth, and other critics before getting scooped up by Crypt TV. McKenzie will bring a stacked television resume to the table, between his role in Gotham as Commissioner James Gordon and longtime parts in The OC and Southland, among other things. Novakovic, meanwhile, has plenty of experience in the horror genre to add, from John Erick Dowdle's Devil to Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell. Rounding out the cast are Malcolm Fuller, Sawyer Jones, and Kane Kosugi.
Who Else Is Involved in 'Bloat'?
Image via Lionsgate
Bloat has faced a long road to the big screen with filming initially starting back in 2022, but the end is nearly in sight with less than two months to go before release. In addition to Absento, who both wrote and directed the feature, it also boasts a major producer helping to get it across the finish line in Timur Bekmambetov. Best known for directing Night Watch and the 2016 version of Ben-Hur, Bekmambetov has also been attached as a producer on plenty of horror flicks, including Searching, Unfriended, and Unfriended: Dark Web. He also has a film of his own coming out this year in Mercy, a sci-fi thriller starring Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson.
Bloat debuts in theaters, on digital, and on-demand on March 7. Check out the exclusive poster in the gallery above.
English (US) ·