A BANGOR audience leapt from their seats, wide-eyed, hearts pounding during a special screening of a chilling new film set in the stark quarry landscape of Snowdonia.

They were treated to a special preview of the gripping gothic folk tale ‘Gwen’ at Pontio, last Wednesday.

The atmospheric film, with a cast including BAFTA nominees Maxine Peake and Eleanor Worthington-Cox plus Richard Harrington, Mark Lewis Jones, Gwion Glyn and an Anglesey unknown eight-year-old Jodie Innes, is out on general release on Friday, July 19.

The screening by Pontio, was held in partnership with Bafta Cymru. A question and answer session followed with some of the cast, director/writer William McGregor, and producer Hilary Bevan Jones and was hosted by Pauline Williams.

The public heard about the film making process, the experience of the actors filming in the challenging mountain, and at times "extremely wet and muddy" Snowdonia locations such as the Tryfan Slate Quarry, Tal Braich, Rhosgadfan, and remote Pen Py Pass.

William McGregor described how his background on a farm informed the story as well artwork and music, and folk tales had helped shape the atmospheric film. Pictures such as the famous Vospers' 'Salem' inspired a Welsh chapel scene and a Welsh folk song was slowed down to evoke the eerie qualities of the wind.

William said: "I wanted to tell a story inspired by landscape and folklore. I didn't want it to be categorised as a horror, though it is quite dark and quite scary.

" I also grew up on a remote farm, with that sense sense of how place affects the culture of the local community, informing its traditions and beliefs

"It was fascinating to explore the eerie quality of the Snowdonian landscape."