Severin Films Releases First Look Stills and Details for THE FATED HOUR
New Gothic Horror Short from Director Peter Hengl (FAMILY DINNER) Starring Alina Schaller and Fanny Altenburger
Executive Produced by Canadian Genre Veteran Kier-La Janisse
Severin Films releases today the first look stills and details for The Fated Hour, the upcoming horror short film from Austrian director Peter Hengl, writer-director of the Tribeca 2022 hit Family Dinner. It will begin its festival run this summer, with Severin handling the film’s North American release.
The film stars Alina Schaller, best known for her starring role in the queer hockey drama Breaking the Ice (Tribeca 2022), Fanny Altenburger (Starz’s acclaimed sci-fi thriller Counterpart), veteran stage and screen actor Cornelius Obonya, and Daniel Holzberg (Oscar-winning The Zone of Interest, Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit).
The Fated Hour is a 19th-century period piece set in Austria based on Friedrich Laun’s short story “The Relationship with the Spirit World,” famously cited as a key influence on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Blending psychological unease with spectral ambiguity, Laun’s work helped shape the evolution of Gothic fiction from folkloric ghost story into modern psychological horror. Shot on location in Austria, the film is produced by Hengl and Lola Basara of Vienna-based Capra Film with support from Stadt Wien Kultur (MA7) and the Lower Austrian Film Commission. The Fated Hour was commissioned by Kier-La Janisse (Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror), with Severin’s founders, David Gregory and Carl Daft, on as Executive Producers.
“I’m very excited to have Peter Hengl’s Austrian ghost story joining our growing family of original Gothic shorts,” said Janisse. “Especially with all the incredible heritage locations and rich period detail.”
Speaking further on the film, Hengl added: “The oldest gothic dread is always the most modern: that fate cannot be outrun. I was fortunate to explore this timeless story alongside performers who understood completely that the past and the present are never truly separate—that some things bleed through. For the production, we used analog distortions like various lenses and mirrors not just to evoke a retro vibe, but also to represent the spirit world in the film.”
