Here's our first look at Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore in the fantasy adventure film The Seventh Son. The movie was previously titled The Last Apprentice, which is based on the The Wardstone Chronicles book series by Joseph Delaney.
Bridges plays Master John Gregory, known as a "Spook" who imprisons an evil witch named Mother Malkin (Moore) uses some kind of crazy blood magic. I've seen Bridges play a lot of different characters over the years, and wear a lot of crazy outfits. But I don't recall ever seeing him dressed up as a medieval exorcist. That being said... he looks awesomely badass! Here's what the actor had to say about his character in an interview with USA Today,
He's an interesting cat. He's appreciated for keeping evil away, but he's also a frightening figure to the townspeople. When you mess around with darkness, some of that gets in you, too.
The movie was directed by Sergei Bodrov, and the story is set during the 1700s and follows Tom Ward, a young boy training to be an exorcist in the 1700's who must learn how to exorcise ghosts, contain witches, and bind boggarts. Trouble begins when he's tricked into releasing the most evil witch in the world.
Gregory's getting into the twilight of his years and the apprentices he keeps trying to recruit don't last very long, which becomes a serious problem for him when Malkin escapes and rounds up all of her followers for one momentous attack.
A Spook's apprentice can only be the seventh son of a seventh son, and after Gregory's last one is killed, he finds new backup in Tom Ward (Ben Barnes of the recent Chronicles of Narnia films) to help him fend off their supernatural enemies.
Here’s the synopsis for the book the film will be based off of, The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch:
Twelve-year-old Thomas Ward, as the seventh son of a seventh son, has no inheritance and is bored with farm work, and even though his new job will mean the superstitious villagers will forever shun him, he is eager to go off to adventure with the tall, hooded man he calls the Spook. His mother, a magical person herself, approves, and the Spook’s teaching is strict but kind. But when Tom has only learned enough to be able to control their house-boggart, he is tricked by Alice, the young daughter of a witch family, into inadvertently releasing and then killing Mother Malkin, a witch the Spook has imprisoned in a pit. This is no polite wicca-type witch, but a snuffling, slime-trailing, cannibalistic creature reminiscent of Tolkien’s nasgils. The story of Tom’s escape from the reincarnated witch’s hideous revenge is full of horrible details, as Alice helps, and then once again betrays him. This well-crafted novel marks an auspicious start for an exciting and fast series for young teens.