Caregiving for an aging parent is a fertile subject for horror. The wonderfully rich Relic did an incredible job of exploring that kind of responsibility in a deep, loving, and also terrifying way. Today's feature doesn't fair so well.
Quick Plot: Louise and Michael return to their childhood farm home to help see their ill father through his last days. Their mother, who has spent the last several years tending to his bedside, is less than thrilled with their visit. After just one day together, she slices off her own fingers as easily as chopping carrots before hanging herself from the barn ceiling.
The siblings are upset, and also confused. How could their mother do such a thing, both emotionally and physically. Her diary reveals some obsession with demons, while the coroner discovers a handful of crosses in her pockets. Both Michael and Louise's troubles grow worse as they begin to hallucinate horrific visions surrounding their dying father and already dead mother.
What follows is the It school of false scares. Mind you, director Bryan Bertino actually crafts these sequences quite well, but it becomes very clear after the first CGI spider that we're in for a good 30 minutes of characters witnessing something terrifying, screaming, then opening their eyes to normalcy just as another character enters the frame.
It gets a bit old, especially when there's not much else to hold our attention. Much like Bertino's The Strangers, The Dark and the Wicked is a very glum film. The lighting is dark, the characters are sad, and our never explained demon lacks a shred of a sense of humor.
I have no problem with a horror film taking itself seriously. I'd much rather a director commit to the genre than undercut their storytelling with tonal shifts. But there's just nothing to really hold onto with The Dark and the Wicked. I found myself thinking a lot about Antlers, a completely unrelated, equally dour film of recent years. Both are decently executed movies about terrible things happening to unhappy people in a miserable place (though the baby goats are very cute). That's fine if the actual scares add up to something effective. For me, they just, well, added up.
High Points
I can't say this enough: The Dark and the Wicked is a good film (even if I didn't like it), and a good chunk of that comes from Marin Ireland's performance as Louise. I wish I knew WHO SHE ACTUALLY WAS as a character by the script, but the actress does a whole lot of work to make up for that
Low Points
I guess this goes into spoiler territory, although there's no actual reveals so is that even possible? Anyway, the more I think about the demon's process of tearing this family apart, the dumber The Dark and the Wicked ultimately feels. This is a demon that makes prank calls to strangers to make Louise feel bad, then uses a simulation of Louise to drive an acquaintance to suicide. It creates an elaborate tableau for Michael so he has no choice but to slit his own throat, and then flicks it away with a job well done. Then it just brutally kills goats on its own (well, in fairness, maybe Bertino just cut a scene where Louise's apparition appeared to a the herd and encouraged them to slaughter themselves). There are no rules, there is no logic, and I'm left feeling if the writer/director doesn't care, why should I?
Lessons Learned
Listen to your mother
Few things are cuter than baby goats
If your week has been filled with hallucinations that are quickly proved to be just that, maybe wait two minutes before making a rash decision based off a visual display that seems incredibly shocking and unbelievable
Rent/Bury/Buy
The Dark and the Wicked is a well-made film. I just happened to hate it. It's cruel in a way I found simply unpleasant, though I could easily understand why this would work very well for many a horror fan. Make up on your own mind via Shudder.
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