REVIEW: The Dark and the Wicked (2020)
It’s mostly great — even if it runs out of ideas towards the end
Some of the best horror movies do an excellent job of being both disturbing and a lot of fun. Midsommar wove a story about female emancipation into a darkly funny setting involving a murderous Swedish cult. You’re Next used the home invasion and final girl tropes to create an intense and frightening film that made you laugh throughout. Creep 2 took all the terror of its predecessor and gave it a dose of camp for a horror flick that repeatedly veered into comic territory.
Bryan Bertino’s The Dark and the Wicked is not one of these films. It isn’t fun, there’s no levity, and from beginning to end it fills you with dread. In that respect, the film is a complete success. Hopelessness and despair is carved into every scene, shot and line of dialogue. The cinematography is pale and sickly. The characters look purposefully dishevelled and as though they’re barely keeping it together. Bertino obviously intended to make the film relentlessly bleak, and credit where it’s due: the guy nailed it.
Wicked follows siblings Louise (Marin Ireland) and Michael (Michael Abbott Jr.), who go to their parents’ farm to help their mother look after their bedridden and seriously ill father. When they arrive, their mother is unhappy to see them and tells them they shouldn’t have come. They stay the night and awaken the next morning to discover that their mother has cut off her fingers and hanged herself in the barn. Devastated, the two resolve to stay at the house and look after their father until he passes away. But when strange and sinister things start happening in the house, the two begin to suspect a malign presence might be responsible for their father’s illness and mother’s death.
The first half of Wicked is better than the second. The premise isn’t exactly original, and less generous viewers might argue parts of the plot are lifted from other recent horror movies. Ari Aster explored family trauma through a horror lens beautifully in Hereditary, and while Wicked hits a lot of similar notes, Bertino only really manages to make them sing for the first 50 minutes. Once the scares ramp up at the climax, they’re standard haunted house fare — and not executed especially well by then, either.
That said, Wicked definitely is a scary movie, and it has some very scary moments. Bertino already proved his deep-focus chops in his debut film The Strangers, and Wicked is no different. Silhouettes lurk and stalk characters in the background. Shadows that appear to belong to the siblings move by themselves. Apparitions come and go in the blink of an eye. I wouldn’t call it subtle, but it’s creepy. And Wicked has two of the biggest jump scares I’ve seen in a horror film for quite some time.
Bertino’s problem, however, is that he never elevates these scares to something bigger than their parts. The Strangers was criticised for its sadistic depiction of a home invasion when it came out in 2008. Here, Bertino had the opportunity to do something more. All the elements were there: Wicked could’ve been a masterpiece had it been handled with a little more patience. But I can’t help but feel that at some point, Bertino lost focus and gave in to his baser impulses. The end result is a horror film that, like countless others before it, runs out of ideas at the worst possible moment.
Thankfully, Bertino’s imperfections as a filmmaker are counteracted by an excellent cast. Both leads perform beautifully, but Marin Ireland really shines as Louise. She portrays terror very effectively and soaks up every drop of despair throughout. Ireland and Abbot Jr. are accompanied by a very competent supporting cast, as well. For the short time she has on screen, Julie Oliver-Touchstone’s performance as the mother is deeply discomforting. Xander Berkeley only has a few lines as a dubious priest, but he manages to make them very scary. At the end of the day, however, this film belongs to Ireland and Abbot Jr., who do their best to elevate the script at its weaker points.
It’s frustrating to think what Wicked could’ve been. It isn’t a bad film at all. In fact, it’s among the best horror films I’ve seen so far this year. But it sits in that little space occupied by films that stun you with their potential, only to fall at the last few hurdles. I’m reminded of David Bruckner’s The Ritual, or Johnny Kevorkian’s Await Further Instructions. Perhaps if these guys sat down in a room together they’d be able to create one amazing horror movie. Until then, however, it looks like we’ll have to settle for three horror movies with amazing first halves. Rating: 3.5/5
