The Accursed could be described as part The Taking of Deborah Logan (though it's not found footage) and part The Last Shift, although these films are masterpieces compared to The Accursed. One line from the film; 'are you ready to gaze into hell?' should be answered with a strong 'no' to anyone wishing to not waste 90 minutes of their life.
The film immediately reveals Ms. Ambrose (Meg Foster) to be a witch proficient in curses, her clients this evening, mother and daughter pair Mary Lynn (Alexis Knapp) and Sadie (Kallani Knapp) seemingly requiring her services, until unwittingly turning the curse back onto Ambrose herself. The mother and daughter flee, promising to return to finish the job, their history with Ambrose later revealed. For every bit of promise the opening has, it is hampered by a lack of explanation and exaggerated performances, making the film's tone questionable at best.
The feature jumps forward three months to Elly (Sarah Grey), with no context connecting her with the opening scene. Elly is a nurse, returning home to deal with her late, estranged mother's estate, after abandoning her years prior. The film barely touches on the issues that plagued her mother which led to her eventual suicide, this absence of substantial backstory being one of the film's chief detractions.
The film is capable of making a disturbingly dark ambiance, as Elly explores her childhood home, haunted by unresolved trauma, though it is not as oppressive as say, The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh, another feature that touched upon familial issues. That said, the musical score assists in enhancing the atmosphere.
However, that same score comes back to haunt the potential this film has with the constant stereotypical jump scare track - the film just cannot go a few minutes without employing one. Furthermore, The Accursed overuses its nightmare sequences, and if Jaws 4 taught us anything, a movie *that* reliant on what is otherwise fake scares, has little else up its sleeve.
As a character, Elly is severely underbaked. She has an aversion to technology (she almost never uses her mobile phone), loves record players and goes jogging - outside of this (a lot of which is used to simply make the plot work), she is very hollow.
Elly is later contacted by Alma (Mena Surval), a caregiver to Ms. Ambrose, who requires a nurse to provide medical assistance to the now bed-ridden patient for the weekend. In an attempt to get away from her childhood home, Elly accepts the job, her initial introduction to Alma revealing her to be a strange, passive-aggressive character, who is only too eager to leave.
Elly, of course, never questions this, given little in the way of independent character motivation. With this in mind, her role as a nurse is severely challenged, with the film hardly referencing this. Alongside coming off as disingenuous, never does she check the medical equipment, clean her patient's skin lesions, or offer her a bed bath - any one of these may have made her aware that not everything is as it seems with Ms. Ambrose.
Though Elly is isolated in the Ambrose estate, surrounded by woodland, the sense of threat is dispelled by the continuous contact with her neighbor, Mary Lynn, and best friend, Beth (Sarah Dumont). Speaking of, despite Elly's bestie being a stand-out character, with her fun attitude and willingness to bluntly say what audiences may feel, she represents the film's tonal inconsistency. In that sense, the film just can't take a trick, can it? Everything the film does well only hampers it in another way.
As Elly continues to feel more uneasy about her stay, she realises her family may be more connected to Ambrose than she first imagined. The inclusion of themes like witchcraft, possession, guilt and mental illness should make for an interesting horror experience, if used right - the film however, hardly uses them at all. This is compounded further by the film's illogical cuts. Example, we go from Elly reeling with disgust as Ms. Ambrose vomits, to Elly outside enjoying the sunshine ~ I mean, huh? Did she clean up the mess? Did her patient choke on the bile spewing out of her? Cuts like these frequently occur, which harm the pacing and narrative structure.
When used sparingly, the prosthetic, make-up and special effects in the film do add to the atmosphere. That said, there are only so many times you can watch demon hands erupting from a person's mouth (as depicted in the trailer), before the initially impressive footage becomes monotonous and stale, same for the satanically black eyeballs representing possession, and the sound of an over-burdening mother screeching her daughter's name. The repetitiveness of these sequences leaves the film feeling like a three-trick pony, and little more.
Additionally, the film flirts with the idea that Ambrose might actually be in worse condition than originally described - whilst having her connected to a working heart rate monitor that says otherwise - half-baked ideas like these only harm what is already a haphazard experience.
The Accursed is a film that does show promise, and nothing could be truer of this than the final sequence, which is too good of an ending for something so unsatisfying. In the end, this is a cliched and contrived experience, that lacks the confidence or originality to really use any of its characters or themes effectively.
