Director: Thomas Robert Lee
Year: 2020
Country: Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Witchcraft
Plot:
Living alone with her mother, a woman living in secret from their devout neighbors finally grows tired of their sheltered lifestyle and takes it upon herself to right the wrongful treatment of the villagers towards them, setting off a chain-reaction of torment and sorrow against everyone else.
Review:
There was quite a lot to really enjoy with this one. Among it’s brightest aspects is the wholly engaging and chilling setup here that provides plenty of fun background. The setup involving the settlers coming and starting up their community only to face severe hardships in spite of her success creates a great starting point here, focusing on the villagers’ paranoia and isolation about the disparity between their outcomes. Once we know the reason for the different nature between them, this growing realization sets in involving their old-school beliefs and the oncoming revelation about the girls provide plenty to like here.
As well, there’s a lot to enjoy once it plays the measured antics involving the series of witchcraft accusations. Starting with the plan to infiltrate the house against her mother’s knowledge and setting into motion the first stage of the plan by the corruption of the wife before leaving unnoticed, this is a fine way to start this one as it’s seemingly innocuous to the unaware yet still quite chilling in concept. Done in accordance with the slowly-growing curses affecting the rest of the villagers from the spoiled food and unnatural physical changes, this part of the film manages to get a highly enjoyable atmosphere of dread building up throughout.
When it comes to the final pay-off of this early build-up, there’s quite a bit to like here. As the tragedies grow more intense from the children’s misfortunes to the church incident and the encounter at their cabin, this one goes into quite a dark territory involving the daughters’ growing ire and independence which causes more tragedy and despair around the villagers. When it all explodes in the finale with a fun and enjoyable series of scenes showing how their curse begins overtaking and corrupting everyone until the big confrontation with not just her but the rest of the coven, this one scores incredibly well as the chilling and brutal scenes end this on a high note. It could’ve generated more explanations for everything but that’s the only true flaw.
Overview: ****.5/5
Despite missing out on a key area that would’ve made this an all-time classic, instead this falls just short as the intriguing setup, dark concepts and brutal action win this over quite readily. Give this one a shot if you’re a fan of these slow-burn folk/horror efforts or are intrigued by the subject matter, while only those who don’t like this slow-burn formula should heed caution.
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