THE DARK AND THE WICKED (2021)
Label: Acorn Media
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Cert. 18
Duration: 96 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.39:1)
Director: Bryan Bertino
Cast: Marin Ireland, Michael Abbott Jr.,Michael Zagst,
From Bryan Bertino, the director The Strangers, come the gloomy The Dark and The Wicked, an intense chiller that could be interpreted as an eerie and quite frightening meditation on the death of loved ones and the grief that follow... or that might just be me having lost my father a little over a year ago and that's just how it hits me at this particular time. No matter the inspiration for the dark tale
From Bryan Bertino, the director The Strangers, come the gloomy The Dark and The Wicked, an intense chiller that could be interpreted as an eerie and quite frightening meditation on the death of loved ones and the grief that follow... or that might just be me having lost my father a little over a year ago and that's just how it hits me at this particular time. No matter the inspiration for the dark tale
I think we can agree that film can affects people differently is a testament to it's artistry, and I think this is one that will hit home differently for all of us.
In it distant siblings Louise (Marin Ireland, The Irishman) and Michael (Michael Abbott Jr.) converge at their childhood home where their father (Michael Zagst) who is bed-ridden and unresponsive in his dying days, wasting away from some terminal condition. His wife (Julie Oliver, TV's Preacher) has been caring for him, with some pert-time help from a visiting hospice nurse (Lynn Andrews), but is worn down. Still, she's none to pleased about the arrival of her children, hav9ing told them to not come home. Right away the sibling notice that mom is a bit frazzled, perhaps a bit worn down by the stress of her husband dying and having to care for him, but there's something more to it, there's a darkness enveloping her.
That night the mom is cutting veggies in the kitchen and mutilates herself with a kitchen knife, then hangs herself in the barn, where her children discover her corpse. Now their grief is doubled, their mother is dead in an inexplicable sort of way and their father is dying, and they're left to tend to his needs while they await his inevitable death. Later while going through their mother's belonging they read passages from her diary which seem to indicate some malevolent force has been attempting to steal her husband's soul. Now the siblings begin to suffer the same darkness as their mother as they are seemingly marked evil, hearing voices and having nightmarish visions that threaten to drive them insane. There have been a handful of these film with people dealing with the death and/or the quickening decrepitude of their parents, stuff like The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014), Sator (2019) and Relic (2020), and maybe it's just my age, but I have found them quite affecting.
It's a low-key sort of chiller that I found quite effective in it's execution, even though their is not much of an embodiment of the darkness, though we do a creepy preacher thrown into the mix, there's a plenty of tension and a palpable sense of dread that I found unnerving. One thing that might put people off is that there's not a lot of character development here, these siblings don't get much if any backstory, but the impending death of their father is relatable so I kind of just went along with it.
Audio/Video: The Dark and the Wicked (2021) arrives on region-free Blu-ray in 1080p HD framed in 2.39:1 widescreen. The digital shot film looks solid with a crisp and strongly detailed image, but it's a film that is mired in gloom and does not offer much vibrancy. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with optional English subtitles, it's a solid presentation with some nice creepy use of the surrounds,
Extras are vert slim, we only get a half-hour zoom Q&A with
Marin Ireland and Michael Abbot Jr. that was conducted following an online screening of the film at the Fantastia Film Fest. The single-disc release arrives in an oversized keepcase with a single sided sleeve of artwork.
Special Features:
- Fantasia Q&A with Marin Ireland and Michael Abbot Jr. (33 min)
I've been enjoying director Bryan Bertino's post-The Strangers output, both Mockingbird and The Monster were strong as well, and if you like what he's been doing I think you're gonna dig this one quite a bit. Acorn Media's Blu-ray release of The Dark and the Wicked has solid A/V, I just wish we had a few more extras, but I am happy to add it to the collection, recommended.
