By: Joe Meyers 8/7/20
Writer/Director Bryan (THE STRANGERS, THE MONSTER) Bertino is back with a film about siblings Louise (Marin Ireland) and Michael (Michael Abbot Jr.) returning to the family farm for the week to help their Mother (Julie Oliver-Touchstone) with their terminally ill Father (Michael Zagst). It becomes quickly, and abundantly, clear the kids don’t return home very often and that their mother doesn’t want them there.
Bryan Bertino wastes no time dropping us into the thick of things. A horrible incident with Mother leads to the kids finding her diary. In it they find page after page of her taking about something evil out there coming for their Father. His nurse (Lynn Andrews) tells Louise her Mother had changed recently, began sitting next to her Father and talking, but it was as if she was speaking to someone else and not him. Louise becomes convinced their Mother kept telling them not to come so she could save them from the clutches of whatever she was talking to.
Louise and Michael both begin to see and hear things, and this is where Bryan’s script really grabs ahold of you and doesn’t let go. The sense of dread that falls over the farm is palpable. It is in fact, dark, wicked, and unrelenting as each new night raises the stakes until the kids decide they should have their Father transported to a hospital, so they could leave the farm. The evil entity haunting the farm, of course, has other plans for the siblings and those around them.
The performances, especially by Marin Ireland, are impressive and gut-wrenching. Xander Berkeley as a Priest has a small but extremely memorable role as well. Bryan Bertino’s script is viciously efficient and cuts right to the bone. His directing masterfully places you in the middle of the horrendous events, won’t let you go, and forces you to watch the unspeakable events that unfold. This movie is bleak with a capital B, and it so very in my wheelhouse. I rarely have nightmares after watching horror films, and I have to admit I bolted out of sleep a little past 3:00 a.m. this morning because of the movie.
With THE STRANGERS it was all about “What happens if the evil gets inside?” Here the question is “What happens if the evil is already inside?” THE DARK AND THE WICKED will be available via VOD as of 11/6/2020, and I can’t wait to own it, and watch again. I have a good feeling I’ll be talking much more about this film when we do our top horror films of 2020 in a few months.
The Podcast Macabre 