Director: Richard John Taylor
Year: 2022
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Witchcraft
Plot:
Sent to a remote English village, a woman looking for her missing father finds that her search has brought her to the same area that hosted a series of witch trials hundreds of years earlier and that she is following in the footsteps of her ancestors who originally encountered the witches.
Review:
There wasn’t a whole lot to this one that stood out. Among its better elements present here is the decent idea of attempting to present this one as a multi-century storyline with the different figures involved in the same general setup. Offering a cursory id still workable setup of the fathers for the woman in the past and present, going missing in the same area, and forcing the daughter to head into the heart of the coven to find him allows for a somewhat decent starting point. The different storylines jumping around in time and featuring some striking parallels make for a solid enough idea that includes eerie parallels of action with the same creatures encountered in the woods, the conclusion to the searches being similar, and getting a rousing enough final half in some genuinely scenic locations to have some worthwhile elements.
This one does have some big factors against it. One of the main drawbacks here is a lethargic and undercooked tempo that’s just utterly dull and dreadful to get through. Hardly anything happens with the first house of this one, as the idea of turning this one into a quest to find out what happened manages to give very few incidents of haunting or even threatening action, as it all depends on who we’re following that dictates what’s going on. If we’re in the present time, it focuses on the endless prattling on about the history of the location and how violent they really were, while the period-set sequences are all about how futile everything is based on how dangerous they are. This isn't fun in the slightest, and the pacing here is so glacial that it’s entirely possible to feel quite dull as a result.
The other issue here is the absolutely unlikable and plain irritating main girl in the present scenes, which makes for a really challenging watch at times. With far too much of her time here spent being stand-offish to the local s who are joining her in the search, being argumentative toward anyone who offers up anything resembling a sensible break in the plan, and in general acting rude and hostile overall is a massive turn-off that makes it quite hard to care about her or her search. As it goes along, featuring even more bits about what type of person she is and why she’s searching for him, this becomes even less interesting about caring what’s going on, which is a touch alongside the rather dull pacing that comes into play here. Alongside the lack of blood or gore here due to the low-budget style on display, these all manage to drive the film down from what it could’ve been.
Overview: */5
A disappointing and generally lacking genre effort, there are a few factors here that make it worthwhile compared to more prominent flaws that are quite damaging overall. Give it a shot more if you’re curious about it or are fans of this style of low-key genre fare while most others out there should heed caution with it.
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