Director: Tereza Nvotová
Year: 2023
Country: Slovakia/Czech Republic
Alternate Titles: Světlonoc
Genre: Witchcraft
Plot:
Returning to her childhood home village, a woman visiting a friend still living there finds the area overrunning with paranoia and superstition about her connection to a possible witch that's terrorized the area for years and eventually sees the situation become deadly through their beliefs.
Review:
This was a pretty solid and enjoyable genre effort. One of the better features here is the way this one plays with rural folklore and supernatural incidents running people's livelihoods. Shown to be a village that's still heavily reliant on the old ways of doing things with their mindset and values adapted from that kind of mentality due to the way they treat her returning, it creates a perfect storm of connection with the rural folk-horror stylings its' clearly aiming for. That it manages to feature such action as it depicts here that flat-out touch on the misogynistic with the way the men behave with women around here is soon introduced to the main two here which creates such a hostile environment that the belief in witchcraft feels appropriate instead of antiquated and creates a fantastic atmosphere for the later proceedings.
That is what perfectly sets up the second half here as things become far more mystical and supernatural. As the incidents that take place between her and her friend around the village begin to sway them over to the belief that something isn't right with either of them and that they're indeed practicing witchcraft, the proper motivation and background are in place for the ensuing scenarios to unfold. Taking place in the middle of the forest dripping with fog and neon-lit bodies writhing naked amidst a roaring fire, the scene as a whole is a great setup that generates the potential cause for what's going on in the finale where they get to confront the villagers which is a fantastic finale that has quite a lot of generally chilling action with some fantastic revelations at play. Overall, these are what hold this one up.
There are some factors with this one that does bring it down. One of the biggest problems here is the complete lack of connection to what's happening as this one unravels. Due to the fact that this one is mostly build-up rather than doing anything that constitutes action for a large part of the film, there's a real problem here getting into the finale where despite this being the main part that has action for once hardly any of it manages to generate a satisfactory conclusion with the way the film ends. This takes a rather bizarre turn and seems to just finish because it's reached an appropriate running time. That really ends this on a sour note where it's quite a weak note considering the build-up that was leading this to a decidedly different concept which would've been a far better way to go than how this ends, being pretty much the main issues against this one.
Overview: ***.5/5
A highly enjoyable if slightly flawed folk-horror effort, there's more than enough to enjoy with this one that it does overcome those issues which crop up here even if they lower this from what it could've been. Those who are intrigued by the concept, are a fan of this type of folk horror, or are curious about it will have a lot to like with it while those who don't like this approach should heed caution.
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