Review: The Dark and the Wicked (2020)

Directed by: Bryan Bertino
Starring: Marin Ireland, Michael Abbott Jr., Julie Oliver-Touchstone
Written by: Bryan Bertino
Music by: Tom Schraeder
Country: United States
Available on: Blu-ray/DVD (Image Entertainment)
IMDb

Continuing my trek to check out the more acclaimed horror movies of 2020, I watched writer/director Bryan Bertino’s The Dark and the Wicked (2020). Bertino’s debut, The Strangers, is a masterpiece in the art of dread, but his follow-ups haven’t quite gotten back to that peak. This one, however ... holy shit. The Dark and the Wicked is the most unsettling movie I’ve seen since Hereditary. The movie concerns a brother and sister who return to their family farm when their father falls gravely ill and they start to realize there is something, well, wicked at play back home. The entirely of the runtime is fraught with icy cold tension and melancholy. The atmosphere is suffocatingly effective, enhanced considerably by the desolate landscape of the isolated farm surrounded by early winter chill and obviously haunted by the ghosts of the family at the center of the story. The scares here are plentiful and potent but much quieter than you might expect given current horror trends. There are no loud noises to portend the evil. The constant disquiet is amplified by small shifts in the sounds and sights on the outskirts of the frame, while a subtle but jarring score seethes through the darkness. The two lead actors are very good, particularly Marin Ireland, who really sells her desperate fear. The movie is purposely opaque and Bertino’s script provides no answers as to what’s really happening and why, and I think that’s to the movie’s benefit. I would have liked a little more insight into the family’s dynamic — why brother and sister were somewhat estranged, why the farm was so ripened with tragedy. But it’s a minor issue in what’s ultimately a very creepy movie whose terrors are driven by its ambiguity.

Rating: 9 out of 10