Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse is the latest adaptation of work from the world’s most celebrated mystery author, with Amazon Prime’s new two-part mini-series premiering this spring. Amazon Studios released its first trailer Tuesday in all its creepy glory. Check it out down below:
Starring Rufus Sewell, known most recently for his role in The Man in the High Castle, this version of Christie’s 1961 novel arrives as a story told in two parts. BAFTA-nominated writer Sarah Phelps adapted Christie’s novel for the small screen and serves as executive producer. From the looks of the trailer, it appears that the story will remain set in the time when the story was originally published, the early 1960s.
The basic premise of The Pale Horse centers on a rather unusual murder investigation into the death of a young woman, one complicated by a mysterious list of names discovered in her shoe. This develops into a double investigation, one looking for the murderer, and another seeking to understand the list of names – especially after those on it mysteriously keep dying. One of the people on that list is Mark Easterbrook, whom Sewell plays. When he discovers that other people on the list have died, he begins to worry he’s next to go.
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Easterbrook then begins an investigation into how his name got added to the mysterious list. His journey inevitably leads to a place called “The Pale Horse,” a home for three women rumored to be witches in the eerily named village of Much Deeping. Soon, Easterbrook finds a link between his deceased wife Delphine (Georgina Campbell) and the supposed witches of Pale Horse. The disbelieving Easterbrook initially scoffs at the idea of supernatural forces, but as someone mentions in the trailer, “we’re all rational when the sun is shining. But it’s different when it goes dark.”
Joining Sewell in the cast is Kaya Scodelario (Spinning Out) as Hermia Easterbrook, Bertie Carvel (Doctor Foster) as Zachariah Osborne, Sean Pertwee (Gotham) as Inspector Stanley Lejeune, Henry Lloyd-Hughes (Killing Eve) as David Ardingly, Poppy Gilbert (Call the Midwife) as Thomasina Tuckerton, Madeleine Bowyer (Black Mirror) as Jessie Davis, Ellen Robertson (Snowflake) as Poppy, Sarah Woodward (Queens of Mystery) as Clemency Ardingly, Georgina Campbell (His Dark Materials) as Delphine Easterbrook, and Claire Skinner (Vanity Fair) as Yvonne Tuckerton. And as the trio of witches from The Pale Horse are played by Rita Tushingham (Vera) as Bella, Sheila Atim (Girl from the North Country) as Thyrza Grey, and Kathy Kiera Clarke (Derry Girls) as Sybil Stamfordis.
Filmmakers mounted several adaptations of Christie’s work in recent years, such as Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express, a modest hit spawning the sequel Death on the Nile, and Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s 2017 film Crooked House, written by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes. BBC also created two television series in 2018 of Christie’s work, Ordeal By Innocence and The ABC Murders. Her mysteries also inspired the ensemble murder mystery Knives Out, written and directed by Rian Johnson.
The Pale Horse premieres on Amazon Prime on March 13th.
Featured Image: Amazon Studios