Mandrake

It seemed like there was much potential to be had here but it just slipped away somehow. The film quality and scene locations were great, seeming to set everything up for a dark, twisted and impactful little folk horror movie. But it just never materialized.

Stereotypical characters followed a stereotypical plot and ended up at a stereotypical ending... if they had focused more on the woods and the mandrake and the evil magic at work, it could have been a great movie, I think.

This is a good "ten o'clock Saturday morning movie to pass the time." But I wouldn't recommend caring about it after 6PM.

Too bad, it felt like there was a lot of missed potential...

I love horror movies from the UK, British, Irish, Welsh and Scottish horror movies seem to be the most effective, probably because they tend to be more atmospheric and low key and don't go for gross out torture porn. Mandrake is a very moody and dark story with excellent acting and a very creepy musical score that helps build tension.

The two leads are very good and carry their roles well. It's nice to see a movie not relying on the typical damsel in distress trope, but having a strong female protagonist.

This is a very effective horror movie for those that want something a little different..

Great collective performances of the Mandrake's cast sets the movie's standard high. Great dialogues not even the slightest overdoing. It's a unique story with an equally unique northern Irish setup. The remoteness and it's culture is fitting very well with the damp gloomy woods of witches. Cinematography is excellent intensifying the this folk horror story. Great visuals rich with the cold misty colour of the surroundings. Mandrake is a story involving a infamous criminal out of prison and a demon figure roaming marshland so that's a pretty good mix and it's all about people who become naive due to great expectations.

Cathy Madden is a divorced mom to a young son and a probation officer. She volunteers to take on Mary Laidlaw. According to the locals, Mary is a witch to be feared although Cathy refuses to believe in any superstition. When two kids go missing, suspicion immediately falls on Mary.

This is a British indie horror. The pacing is slow for the most part, but it has good solid spookiness especially from Mary Laidlaw. Cathy is an interesting and underneath troubled character. I was hoping for supernatural. This is fine. The ending is a bit muddled and I wanted a bigger fight. This is fine especially for a lower budget horror.

In the past few years there has been a slew of psuedo-horror movies coming out if the U. K. Some of them have a comdey element to them, generally with zombies involved and others are just straight horror.

This one falls into the latter category and it follows the same exact format as all the others. Same atmosphere, same country setting, same slow build to nowhere.

It's just not original and becomes rather tedious to watch very early on.

As an example of the mindless boredom, there is a scene right at the beginning where a woman stares at another woman drinking tea for literally 5 minutes.

We get to watch her drink an entire cup. And not the little 6 ounce cups that are regular servings. This is a mug of tea.

Pouring mollasses is faster than the pace of this movie. And makes more sense. At least the mollasses goes somewhere.

The music is very inappropriate too. It's all mystical when nothing is happening!

It all boils down to this -- the actors arent the problem. They are relatively competent. It's the writing and the horrible directing.

We've seen this all before and it's been done better.