A mother and daughter are suspected of witchcraft by their devout rural community.
Folk horror, as a subgenre, has come a long way towards entertaining audiences. Novel films like Robert Eggers’ “The Witch,” “The Lighthouse” and Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” or “Midsommar” have made a name in the public consciousness with an impressive acumen for subtle storytelling and deeply traumatizing horror. This horror punches like no other genre because it stands so firmly in a world almost-forgotten that we could see it as the secret true history; the subtext of our history books. Thomas Robert Lee joins that upper echelon for his sophomore feature, “The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw” through similarly slow-burn storytelling interspersed with bits of wild shock contrasted deeply with perfectly executed camerawork and sharp acting.
A closed-off community of Irish immigrants suffers devastating losses among their community after an eclipse. In the wake of that, one woman, Agatha Earnshaw, gave birth to a daughter. While other farms struggle Agatha’s farm prospers making her the target of the suffering townsfolk. Audrey witnesses the abuses her mother suffers from afar as she hides from the world, until one day she can hide no more. Audrey casts a curse upon the family as well as upon the town kicking off a series of horrifying tortures for this rural village, cut off from the rest of the world.
Cinematographer Nick Thomas portrays the cold harsh life of a distant farm with perfectly level filmmaking. The cinematography maintains near-perfect composure throughout its duration, breaking down into handheld shots just when chaos erupts. Thomas uses natural light and practical lighting to amplify the shadows within the old house. The film itself is leeched almost entirely of color to the effect of making me wonder if there’s a final color correction yet due. Still, we know, from the very beginning, this cruel world they live in does not care about the whims of the townsfolk and Audrey is a force all her own.
Truly, this movie starts and ends with wonderful performances from several key players, namely Jessica Reynolds in the titular role. Catherine Walker leads the cast as the hard-scrap Agatha Earnshaw who pleads, maims, begs, and screams through the harder scenes. Jared Abrahamson ties this trifecta off with a stellar performance emoting every scene, earning the audience’s pity after his character’s initial sin. As if those two aren’t enough I mean it when I say every supporting role is filled with extremely competent hands. Full compliments to Sean McGinley, Geraldine O’Rawe, David LeReaney, Tom Carey, et al. for filling the town with terrifying, desperate villagers attempting to just survive. My biggest nod goes to Hannah Emily Anderson who played Abrahamson’s wife, Bridget. Her performance involved almost all of the horrifying and effects-driven moments. On a shoestring budget, the performance really pushes the horror of those moments over the top, and she brings it all home in one truly terrifying scene of genital mutilation.
“The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw” refuses to look away from the sheer horror contained within. Its setting of a rural village feels thoroughly textured and brings the audience immediately to the scene. Its level camerawork adds to the cold color palette of the piece stirring up shivers among audience members. Its makeup and effects truly shock audiences so that we don’t need to see the final monstrosity to understand it’s gruesome. Conveying weight and gravity with every frame while allowing the actors to wrench every second of agony they can, helps establish this film up there alongside other great indie horror movies. Any fans of the A24 horror crowd will absolutely love this film. Horror fans in general will find this movie absolutely enthralling.
“The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw” recently had its World Premiere at the 2020 Fantasia Festival
