Director: Jack E. Bell
Year: 2022
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Witchcraft
Plot:
Stuck at a remote boarding school, a group of schoolgirls is convinced to follow a strange spell to talk to a former student’s spirit at the school, who was convicted of witchcraft and burned alive, bringing it back to continue the rampage from before against the kids still at the school.
Review:
Overall, this wasn’t too bad a genre effort. Among the better features here is the rather fun setup that manages to bring about the cliches of this type of setup while also managing to hit enough notes to figure out what’s going on. The idea of the group finding themselves in this situation by being stuck at the school during the holidays and getting a chance to do something that will stave off the boredom that arises by being the only ones there creates a nice way to get the various members of the group established and the various parts of the school needed for them to conduct the summoning ritual later on. Since we get to know their personalities briefly enough to be of some use for the later scenes where they’ve managed to summon the witch’s spirit successfully, there are some rather enjoyable aspects here that parallel the work done here to set up the life of the witch in her time that resulted in the belief in her powers.
Once this has all been established, the work done here to focus on the supernatural shenanigans coming to haunt the group is usually solid enough. The constant cutaways to the life in the past while the girls are trying to carry out the innocent-enough work with the ouija board gives this its main purpose, while the chaos and confusion that emerges later on, when they’ve completed the ritual and slowly realize that they’ve set the witch upon them, gives this a likable second half where the combination of supernatural-influenced self-mutilations or ambushes by a spectral figure that kills them off all offers up the kind of intriguing enough setups to generate some cheesy fun. As this all forces them to understand the ritual better and try to come to terms with how to stop it, this provides some sense of urgency to these sequences alongside the cheesy confrontations and workable gore effects, offering up the film’s likable qualities.
There are some issues here that bring this down. The biggest drawback here is the overall lack of purpose that we get from the witch, who never feels like a coherent threat throughout here. The whole time she’s been set free, we never get the chance to understand what her purpose is, as killing them off immediately or manipulating the group to kill themselves makes for fine sequences without much thought behind them, and it all tends to switch around randomly without much thought into why that’s happening. With the girls constantly fretting about completing this ritual, but never putting any emotion or urgency into getting to safety to accomplish it, diminishes things greatly by never making the threat feel encompassing, either, and combined, it's really hard to understand the motive behind the witch. As well, with the cheesy production and flimsy low-budget presentation, there are some rather big issues here that keep this one down.
Overview: **.5/5
A watchable enough if overall troubled genre effort, this one has some likable enough elements, but the few big drawbacks on display do keep this down quite heavily overall. Those with an appreciation for this style or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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