Monks vs. zombies: fight! Er, uh, sorry, that’s monks vs. revenants. Rapture, the directorial debut of playwright Jordan Tannahill, takes place in a remote 14th century monastery “which houses ten monks bound by a life of strict routine and devotion,” according to Deadline. The synopsis continues:
Their fragile peace is disrupted by the arrival of a messenger—a man with haunting news from the outside world who rapidly shows symptoms of a mystery illness. A virulent plague is spreading through the land: marked initially by a hemorrhagic fever, it turns its victims into “revenants”—restless, undead beings. As the contagion closes in, Lansley Abbey becomes a battleground: desperate outsiders beg for refuge while the infected threaten to overrun its walls. The monks are torn apart by a moral rift—between those who believe they must care for the sick and those who want to protect the centuries of knowledge safe-guarded by the monastery. As death is fully unleashed, so too is the brothers’ capacity for extraordinary acts of altruism and ruthless betrayal, forcing them to confront the ultimate question: what does it mean to be human?
Just your casual, moderate, everyday concerns. I am unclear how you tend to the sick when the sick are undead and aggressively contagious, but I look forward to learning more.
Rapture will clearly star at least 11 men—ten monks and a messenger—but the cast so far includes an interesting trio: Will Poulter (Midsommar; The Bear, pictured above), Kit Connor (Heartstopper) and Manu Ríos (Breathless, Elite). Poulter and Connor recently starred together in Alex Garland’s Warfare.
Director Tannahill is a novelist as well as a playwright and director; his novel The Listeners was published in 2021.
No premiere date has been announced for this particular Rapture.