The Dark and the Wicked

Crack out the popcorn, set up the munches, have some drinks at the ready as once you engage this film fully you'll be engrossed, with such a wonderful slow burn that builds and builds to the point of no turning back, much like a good book if you hit that page you wish you could turn it back a page and stop there. So sit back and enjoy.

This one is a hard horror movie to watch and yet it is brim packed with everything that scares you; from the shadows on the wall to the dark figure in the corner of the room, to the gross out scene with the flock of goats and the slick symbolism with the devil and the goats on the farm. The director uses many horror techniques so well it is hard to fault even though the film is very slow and to be fair to the other reviewers it is somewhat boring and will not appeal to many people; even die hard horror fans will find this one hard going!

The film gives the viewer no easy ride with no explanations, no backstory, not much characterization and no simple ending but builds such a lugubrious atmosphere of dripping dread in the style of movies like Hereditary that you cannot but be chilled to the bone with its minimal but effective style.

I want to give it 4/10 but I have to give it credit for being "real horror" and not "Hollywood horror" so it gets an always fair and honest review from me with a solid above average 6 hatchets on the horror scale for this very different approach to horror movie making!

Roger Ebert once said, "It's not what a film is about, but how it is about it." I had to take that into consideration when rating and reviewing 'The Dark and the Wicked'. This is admittedly not my type of horror movie. I struggle with supernatural horror, because I have zero belief in it and thus it does nothing to unsettle me. However, I have to admit that this film was done very well, and that if I were unsettled by those types of films then this one would have done the trick for me. This film is going up some people's alleys big time.

This is such a beautifully shot film. Director Bryan Bertino is so good at framing what is on screen, he doesn't even need what's on screen to be all that impressive for it to look good. I also love the inventive camera angles he comes up with. They don't always work to heighten the scares or even the tension, but they add a touch of class to the mix which is so often missing in the horror genre.

My biggest gripe with the film would be all the jump-scares and the scenes where the demon is basically just trying to scare the characters rather than harm them. I understand why they have to be there to pad the runtime to 90 minutes, but they are still very frustrating to watch. I also didn't really connect with either of the two lead characters. They were very flat (understandable in their situation to be fair) and that made it difficult for me to care all that much about their fate. The final 20-30 minutes of this film is an absolute blast though I'd have to say. The pacing rockets to life and there are some fun and pretty messed up scenes. 'The Dark and the Wicked' is worth a watch.

Really need to be into some dark things to really get a kick out of this film. There are creepy parts but mostly just unexpected deaths and killings that dont really seem to attract the average horror film fanatic. The approach was great but the ending just didn't feel satisfying. I'd recommend to all the dark and eerie movie fans overall.

Enjoyable horror that sets the tension from the start and then slowly builds on it. Well shot and solid acting. Nice subtle scares carry you along till the end. I don't understand why so many bad reviews, as I've said it's an enjoyable indie-horror.