The Dark and the Wicked (2020)
Bryan Bertinos The Strangers has made fans of many horror aficionados for its unflinching nihilism, strong directorial choices, and compelling performances. His latest film, The Dark and the Wicked (at this years Fantasia Fest) takes some tonal cues from that work into different, explicitly supernatural directions. The Dark and the Wicked is a bleak but entertainingly frightening film that uses strained familial relationships to heighten the drama of a fight against a being with dark, nefarious plans. Its easily one of the scariest films of the year.
A man lays isolated, bed-ridden, in a remote rural home he shares with his wife. Hes dying of illness and largely unresponsive while his wife deals with the day-to-day tasks of living effectively alone in this creepy home. The couples children Louise (Marin Ireland) and Michael (Michael Abbott, Jr) spend a week in the isolated abode to visit their dying father. The mother is angered at their intrusion and had told them not to come... we find out she had good reason. A mysterious evil has descended upon the home, affecting the family with visions and terrors galore.
Bertinos vision here shines, and the film excels in the rich darkness of its visuals and the foreboding dread of its plot. The lead performances are all riveting, and Marin Ireland (Hell or High Water, The Umbrella Academy) is exceptional as a frantically concerned (and increasingly traumatized) daughter trying to protect her family at all costs. The audience also gets a strong sense of the foreboding inevitability of everything that happensthe entitys increasing power becomes more and more evident as the siblings try and protect themselves and the family against the films increasingly dire events. The viewer is left with the feeling that perhaps indeed all the world is a stage, a vast and evil one, and perhaps we are just merely players.
There are some questions that a view may be left with (as I certainly was). On the entitys goals (which I wont spoil): why target this family? What makes the targeted individual so special to the entity, and why focus so strongly on them? There is a sense, too, that the entity goes through a rather elaborate number of steps on route to its chosen end, exhibiting nearly limitless power all in pursuit of a rather simple (it seems) goal. Why not just take what it wants, given the powers in question?
That said, The Dark and the Wicked is a deeply unsettling watch with impressive performances and truly haunting scares. The aforementioned evil succeeds in using nearly everything to its advantage, demonstrating a malicious tactical prowess that is, indeed, impressive. A number of the films scenes are quite memorable, sticking with the viewer well after the end of the film. Altogether, The Dark and the Wicked is easily one of the best executed, scariest films of the year.
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