Survival odds become even more harrowing when a mysterious ship crashes mid-winter in period chiller The Damned from director Thordur Palsson. The first look trailer highlights just how cruel life can be in the 19th century.

Look for the psychological chiller to release in theaters on January 3, 2025.

The Damned follows “a 19th-century widow who is tasked with making an impossible choice when a ship sinks off the coast of her isolated fishing outpost during the middle of an especially cruel winter. With provisions running low, Eva and her close-knit community must choose between rescuing the shipwrecked crew and prioritizing their own survival. Facing the consequences of their decision and tormented by guilt, the inhabitants wrestle with a mounting sense of dread and begin to believe they are all being punished for their choices.”

Jamie Hannigan wrote the screenplay based on a story by Palsson.

The Damned boasts an impressive cast, too. Odessa Young (The Daughter, Assassination Nation), Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders), Siobhan Finneran (Downton Abbey), Rory McCann (Game of Thrones), Turlough Convery (Ready Player One), Lewis Gribben (Black Mirror), Francis Magee (Rogue One: A Start Wars Story), Mícheál Óg Lane (Calvary), Andrean Sigurgeirsson (The Darkness), Guillermo Uria (The Real Story Of…), and Arnar Máni Iansson Gray star.

The period horror movie made its debut earlier this year at the Tribeca Film Festival. I wrote in my capsule review that “The Damned plays like a well-crafted cautionary campfire tale. Palsson employs restraint with the folkloric elements, opting instead to lean into the ambiguities of superstition.”

Watch The Damned trailer below and wait for the film to arrive this winter.