Malcolm Gaskill’s book Hellish Nell: The Curious Case of Britain’s Last Witch Trial is getting a movie adaptation, with Deadline reporting that Aislinn Clarke (The Devil’s Doorway) will direct the upcoming Hellish Nell for Studiocanal and The Picture Company.
Deadline details, “Hellish Nell is a chilling horror-thriller based on the real-life medium Helen Duncan, the last UK citizen convicted and imprisoned for witchcraft. The movie follows Helen’s harrowing journey as her innate powers change her life and those closest to her. ”
Chris Basler wrote the screenplay, an adaptation of Gaskill’s book. The Picture Company partners Alex Heineman & Andrew Rona will produce through their deal with Studiocanal.
Here’s the official synopsis for the book, first published in 2001: “One of the last criminal trials using the 1735 Witchcraft Act was, improbably, in London in 1944. The accused was Helen Duncan, a middle-aged Scotswoman. This is her extraordinary story.
“Helen Duncan – known since childhood as ‘Hellish Nell’, for her uncontainable nature – was one of the most popular mediums of the twentieth century, holding seances around the country where she was believed to manifest the spirits of the dead. What happens when we die? It was the question of the age for a generation which had endured one world war and now was living through another. Mrs Duncan’s seances offered an answer. But when she started foretelling naval disasters, she also attracted the unwelcome attention of the secret service.
“And so just weeks before the Normandy landings, absurdly, anachronistically, she was prosecuted for witchcraft and jailed. Was Nell a conjurer, a martyr or a security risk?”
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