Director: John Adams, Toby Poser, Zelda Adams
Year: 2026
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Witchcraft
Plot:
Faced with a deadly diagnosis, a terminal cancer student and her father seek out a powerful witch said to have a potential cure with her herbal treatments, but once he realizes the true extent of her intentions, he tries to save her from the witch’s darker motivations at play.
Review:
On the whole, this was a wholly impressive and likable genre effort. Among the better elements within here come from the strong and overall effective setup that makes it incredibly easy to be seduced by the potential of what their host has to offer. Immediately starting off on a great note involving the cancer diagnosis and how terminal the whole thing is, so that they’re open and willing to work with the strange woman in the woods in her strange behavior and treatment that she offers them, it all feels tied together rather nicely. Knowing what we do about the daughter the more she stays there and finds the treatments and rituals intriguing enough to stay there looking into more ways to stave off death as long as she can, the father being incredibly uncomfortable and ill-a-tease in the situation and the witch resolute in her strange ritualistic procedures without fail, the dynamic within the house comes across rather uneasily as the whole thing carries on.
That makes the different scenes focusing on the ritualistic treatments far more sinister and demonic than at first glance. The idea presented here is based on earthy, herbal remedies and rituals that are supposed to invoke a more natural response, taking care of the disease within her using these unconventional remedies, and trusting the process, regardless of the damage done to both of them mentally and physically, carries quite a strong tone throughout here. The different scenes of her out in the woods, conjuring up the next parts of the ritual to take place later on, offer some dark scenes, praying and invoking dark magic and otherworldly beings that make the full extent of her help feel somewhat questionable. Since some of these setups are quite dark and brutal, from conjuring animals to interacting with them so that they become more confrontational and at odds with each other, it all begins casting doubt on the witch’s true intentions in the best way possible.
With everything set in motion and the finale making the full extent of everything come together in a chilling manner, it offers up some impressive elements overall. Once the truth comes out and ties nicely into the backstory of everything going on, there’s a lot of impressive elements here bringing this into the purpose behind the ritual, where it all makes sense why the whole thing is taking place as the need for revenge being featured here is an impressive one that offers up a generally dark outcome for why they’re there. This revelation does make the film come off with more of an ambiguous tone throughout the first half where it seems to be just weird things happening for no real reason, but as everything does get revealed later on and become far more obvious about what her end goal is for the duo being there, it just slightly holds this one back as the main flaw factored into this one.
Overview: ****.5/5
An immensely effective and chilling genre effort, there’s quite a lot to like here and only a few minor drawbacks that keep this one down, which keeps this near the top of the scene overall. Those with an appreciation of the style attempted here, who are curious about it, or who are fans of the creative crew, will want to give this a chance, while others out there should heed caution.
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