As talented as Atom Egoyan is, he undertook an incredibly difficult task in making a film about the West Memphis Three. The disturbing and fascinating yet ultimately redemptive true story of three young boys convicted of a murder they didn’t commit has already been told near perfectly in no-less-than four documentaries. So right off the bat, Devil’s Knot faces an uphill battle.

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and buzz was quite mixed. Still, with a cast that includes Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, Dane DeHaan, Mireille Enos, Bruce Greenwood, Elias Koteas, Stephen Moyer Amy Ryan, Devil’s Knot is undoubtedly a film that deserves some attention.

Check out the first trailer and poster for the film, which doesn’t have a US release date yet, below.

Thanks to Remstar Films, via The Film Stage, for the heads up. Here’s the trailer.

And the poster.

While the trailer is suitably powerful, I’m not sure a two hour movie could possibly do justice to this frightening true story. The documentaries tell layer upon layer of story, all of which could easily be their own narrative film. How focused, or unfocused, Egoyan decided to be is undoubtedly the key to the film’s success.

Here’s the official description of the film from the Toronto Film Festival.

Atom Egoyan dramatizes the fallout from the notorious 1993 West Memphis murders, focusing on the grieving mother (Reese Witherspoon) of one of the murdered boys as she grows increasingly troubled by the lynch-mob fever that grips the town.