This barebones cast and even more barebones set try to do something curious and admirable: create a "realistic" feeling for what a family in the wilderness centuries ago would do if they encountered, or imagined, witchcraft in their midst.
If you don't believe in witches, then this is kind of for you (except the last 5 minutes, which I will not talk about). It makes a compelling case for how people pushed to the edge deal with tragedy and mystery. They live at the edge of the wilderness (not sure where, maybe Northern New England, since there are wolves at hand). They face starvation and hard work and lots of cloudy, rainy days. It's gloomy. But they have God and religion--a very well written version of loving and fearing God and believing in Jesus and yet finding things they can't explain.
Hence witchcraft, which means that some one or more people in the group are causing the problem through sorcery. It's pretty vivid stuff. Sometimes it veers into excess--a lot of gore and screaming, which might be okay if you like horror films, but if you don't it's the one difficult part. This is a great addition to movies about the Salem witch trials. And it's an inroduction to the up and coming Anya Joy-Taylor in the lead role.
But everyone acts their heart out and this movie, whatever its flaws (or whatever its limitations, rather), gets somewhere.
Until the ludicrous last 5 minutes, which makes it all cheap. Sorry.
If you don't believe in witches, then this is kind of for you (except the last 5 minutes, which I will not talk about). It makes a compelling case for how people pushed to the edge deal with tragedy and mystery. They live at the edge of the wilderness (not sure where, maybe Northern New England, since there are wolves at hand). They face starvation and hard work and lots of cloudy, rainy days. It's gloomy. But they have God and religion--a very well written version of loving and fearing God and believing in Jesus and yet finding things they can't explain.
Hence witchcraft, which means that some one or more people in the group are causing the problem through sorcery. It's pretty vivid stuff. Sometimes it veers into excess--a lot of gore and screaming, which might be okay if you like horror films, but if you don't it's the one difficult part. This is a great addition to movies about the Salem witch trials. And it's an inroduction to the up and coming Anya Joy-Taylor in the lead role.
But everyone acts their heart out and this movie, whatever its flaws (or whatever its limitations, rather), gets somewhere.
Until the ludicrous last 5 minutes, which makes it all cheap. Sorry.