A film driven by themes of addiction and grief, “Eight for Silver” features a French village in the 19th century under threat by a wild, possibly supernatural animal. Still, the cast assured they had a good time on set.
“We actually had a lot of fun making it,” Kelly Reilly explained at Variety’s Studio presented by AT&T TV at the Sundance Film Festival. “We did love the feeling on set that Sean [Ellis] created and his crew.”
“Eight for Silver” kicks into gear when pathologist John McBride (Boyd Holbrook) arrives in the remote village to investigate attacks by a wild animal. In his quest to uncover the danger, McBride learns something much sinister is gripping the townspeople. All the while, he must exorcise his own demons.
“For me as an actor, it was about staying true to the story of loss,” Reilly said.
Reilly and Alistair Petrie play a couple whose child has died. Not only are they grieving this death, but the unravelling of their once happy marriage.
“They have lost each other and can find no way back,” Petrie explained.
Early on in the process, Ellis, also the screenwriter, considered how the original werewolf film was a metaphor for the pre-’40s Jewish experience in Europe. He wondered how could he modernize the concept— what could his story’s monster be about?
“The beast became a sort of metaphor for addiction and the people become prisoner to that addiction,” he said. “That started to form the sort of design of what the beast was going to look like… We’ve all encountered addiction to one extent or another.”