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Wraiths of Roanoke | |
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Genre | Horror Mystery Sci–Fi |
Written by | Rafael Jordan |
Directed by | Matt Codd |
Starring | Adrian Paul Rhett Giles Frida Farrell George Calil Alex McArthur |
Theme music composer | John Dickson |
Country of origin | United States Bulgaria |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Producers | Dana Dubovsky Rafael Jordan Mark L. Lester Steven G. Kaplan |
Cinematography | Anton Bakarski |
Editor | Robin Russell |
Running time | 95 minutes |
Production companies | American World Pictures Rainstorm Entertainment |
Original release | |
Network | Syfy |
Release | October 13, 2007 |
Wraiths of Roanoke (also known as Lost Colony or Lost Colony: The Legend of Roanoke), is a 2007 Syfy original supernatural period horror film, directed by Matt Codd and stars Adrian Paul, Frida Farrell, Rhett Giles, Michael Teh, and George Calil.
The film follows the 16th-century English settlers in America, who are besieged by wraiths. Ostensibly, it is based on the disappearance of the third Roanoke Colony. The film premiered on the Sci Fi Channel on October 13, 2007.
The film opens with the Roanoke Colony, a 16th-century island colony in North Carolina. A settler is running towards the colony, but is locked out and killed by a ghostly figure. The only other settler left in the colony, frightened, locks himself in one of the buildings and hangs himself. English settlers arrive by ship at Roanoke Island with an Indian escort. When the settlers arrive, they find the colony abandoned by the previous occupants, except for one body. They find a corpse hanging from a rope inside a small building, with the door bolted from the inside. John White, the English governor sent with the settlers, dismisses this as an intimidation tactic by the Spanish. White is forced to return to England to gather supplies, and names his son-in-law Ananias Dare (Adrian Paul) interim governor, backed with the strong arm of George Howe (Rhett Giles). That evening, Ananias's pregnant wife Eleanor (Frida Farrell) is sleeping, when suddenly, she has a gruesome dream that her nightgown is covered in blood, with her baby taken from her womb. She runs out into the middle of the town square, and finds a ghost with her baby. She wakes up deeply shaken, and warns Ananias that it might be better for them to return to England. He dismisses this, but settlers begin dying in the woods one by one. Eleanor mysteriously gives birth prematurely, but the baby girl, whom they name Virginia, is thankfully born safely. Crops won't grow on the island's soil, and there are no animals in the forest. More settlers begin dying, and it soon becomes apparent that there is a supernatural presence on the island.
Eleanor continues to get disturbing dreams, and eventually the dreams reveal that the island was the location of a brutal execution of an innocent woman and a few other men by Vikings. Long before, a ship of Viking warriors suffered misfortune and blamed it on one of the women and a few of the men traveling on the ship with them. They took them to the island and tortured them to death, and because of this the souls of the evil Viking men and the other men and the single woman are still trapped on the island in a state between life and death. Ananias must work with Manteo, a local Croatan Indian chief, and his tribe to find a way to send the evil wraiths out of this world and into hell where they belong.
Thinking that the Indians were behind the killings of the settlers, one of the colonists leads an attack on the Indian village, only to be repelled and most of the men killed; for ruining the English's chances of gaining the Indians' trust, he is put in the stocks. Later that night, the wraiths suck out his soul and begin an attack on the colonists; they are fought back, but many colonists are killed. It is soon revealed that these wraiths feed on the souls of the living and are trying to kill Virginia because they require an innocent soul to pass on to the afterlife; it is also learned that their weaknesses are fire and water (water being a symbol of life). They are soon forced to devise a plan to defeat the wraiths; they set up a raft with a pile of wood and hay on it and wait for the moon to come. The wraiths arrive at night and due to a colonist panicking, they begin attacking them. In time, only Eleanor, Ananias, Virginia, and Howe are the only survivors. Unfortunately, Eleanor attacks one of the wraiths in an attempt to save Ananias but is quickly killed. After a few minutes, Howe and Ananias are mortally wounded, with the latter luring the wraiths onto the raft with baby Virginia. As they close in on Ananias and Virginia, Howe launches a fire arrow onto the raft, setting it aflame; as the wraiths cannot cross water, they are forced to suffer. Ananias looks at Virginia one last time before setting her adrift and dying. Later on, Virginia is found by the Indians and is to be raised as one of their own; Manteo orders the tribe to bury the colonists and set their colony on fire.
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The film was released on DVD by Allumination on May 20, 2008. It was later released by Phase 4 Films on May 3, 2011, as a part of the second volume of their "Horror 4 Pack". [1]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2020) |
Critical response for Wraiths of Roanoke has been mixed to negative. Dread Central rated it a score of two out of five, with the reviewer writing, "Wraiths of Roanoke is a lifeless yet inoffensive supernatural thriller with a historical bent to it. Well made yet still resoundingly uneventful; it’s got its head in the right place, it just doesn’t deliver much for your investment and tried my patience with all the waiting for the storyline to develop any traction". [2] Justin Felix of DVD Talk awarded the film a similar score of two out of five, criticizing the film's cheap production values, acting, and special effects. Felix ended his review by stating that, although the film itself was poorly made, he considered it the best of the SyFy Channel's Made-for-TV films, and "mildly amusing". [3]
John White was an English colonial governor, explorer, artist, and cartographer. White was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville in the first attempt to colonize Roanoke Island in 1585, acting as artist and mapmaker to the expedition. He would most famously briefly serve as the governor of the second attempt to found Roanoke Colony on the same island in 1587 and discover the colonists had mysteriously vanished.
Roanoke Island is an island in Dare County, bordered by the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was named after the historical Roanoke, a Carolina Algonquian people who inhabited the area in the 16th century at the time of English colonization.
Roanoke Colony was an attempt by Sir Walter Raleigh to found the first permanent English settlement in North America. The colony was founded in 1585, but when it was visited by a ship in 1590, the colonists had inexplicably disappeared. It has come to be known as the Lost Colony, and the fate of the 112 to 121 colonists remains unknown.
Dare County is the easternmost county in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 36,915. Its county seat is Manteo.
Manteo is a town in Dare County, North Carolina, United States, located on Roanoke Island. The population was 1,602 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Dare County.
Virginia Dare was the first English child born in an American English colony.
1602: New World is a five-issue Marvel Comics limited series and is the sequel to the 1602 limited series, and as such is set in the year 1602 in the same continuity as the original series and picks up where 1602 left off. This time the story is written by Greg Pak and illustrated by Greg Tocchini.
Ananias Dare was a colonist of the Roanoke Colony of 1587. He was the husband of Eleanor White, whom he married at St Bride's Church in London, and the father of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in America. The details of Dare's death are still unknown.
Manteo High School is one of ten schools located in Dare County, North Carolina. The high school was named after the Native American chief Manteo, who assisted the Roanoke Colony. Renovations to the school were completed in 2007.
The Croatan were a small Native American ethnic group living in the coastal areas of what is now North Carolina. They might have been a branch of the larger Roanoke people or allied with them.
Roanoke Island Festival Park is a North Carolina state historic site located at the end of NC 400 in Manteo, North Carolina on Roanoke Island. The park includes a recreated 16th-century sailing ship, living history demonstrators, a museum, and a variety of performing and visual arts. Admission includes the main attractions and is valid for two days.
Eleanor Dare of Westminster, London, England, was a member of the Roanoke Colony and the daughter of John White, the colony's governor. While little is known about her life, more is known about her than most of the sixteen other women who left England in 1587 as part of the Roanoke expedition.
The Lost Colony is an historical outdoor drama, written by American Paul Green and produced since 1937 in Manteo, North Carolina. It is based on accounts of Sir Walter Raleigh's attempts in the 16th century to establish a permanent settlement on Roanoke Island, then part of the Colony of Virginia. The play has been performed in an outdoor amphitheater located on the site of the original Roanoke Colony in the Outer Banks. More than four million people have seen it since 1937. It received a special Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre award in 2013.
Manteo was a Croatan Native American, and was a member of the local tribe that befriended the English explorers who landed at Roanoke Island in 1584. Though many stories claim he was a chief, it is understood that his mother was actually the principal leader of the tribe. This leadership would not have automatically passed down to her children as many English at the time may have assumed.
The Aquascogoc is the name given to a Native American tribe of Secotan people and also the name of a village encountered by English colonists during their late 16th century attempts to settle and establish permanent colonies in what is now North Carolina, known at the time as Virginia. Together with the rest of Secotan people they formed a part of the Native American group known as the Carolina Algonquian Indians, and spoke the now extinct Carolina Algonquian language. In 1585 the village of Aquascogoc was burned by Sir Richard Grenville, in retaliation for the alleged theft of a silver drinking vessel.
Wanchese was the last known ruler of the Roanoke Native American tribe encountered by English colonists of the Roanoke Colony in the late sixteenth century. Along with Chief Manteo, he travelled to London in 1584, where the two men created a sensation in the royal court. Hosted at Durham House by the explorer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh, he and Manteo assisted the scientist Thomas Harriot with the job of deciphering and learning the Carolina Algonquian language. Unlike Manteo, Wanchese evinced little interest in learning English, and did not befriend his hosts, remaining suspicious of English motives in the New World. In April 1586, having returned to Roanoke, he finally ended his good relations with the English, leaving Manteo as the colonists' sole Indian ally.
Dare or Daré is both a surname and a given name. Notable people with the name include:
The Roanoke Island, North Carolina, half dollar is a commemorative coin issued by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1937. The coin commemorated the 350th anniversary of the Roanoke Colony, depicting Sir Walter Raleigh on one side, and on the other Eleanor Dare, holding her child, Virginia Dare, the first child of English descent born in an English colony in the Americas.
Mabel Augusta Evans Jones was an American educator and writer. As superintendent of schools in Dare County, North Carolina, she wrote and produced the silent film The Lost Colony (1921), directed by Elizabeth B. Grimball and intended for classroom and community educational use.