Starring: Charlotte Kirk, Sean Pertwee

Directed by Neil Marshall

Vertigo Releasing, on download now

A young widow haunted by the recent suicide of her husband is falsely accused of being a witch after she rejects his advances.

After his unnecessary, big budget 2019 reboot of Hellboy, I was hoping that this 17th Century horror movie would be a return to form for Neil Marshall, who impressed with his early shockers The Descent and Dog Soldiers. Unfortunately, this grim folk horror tale of witch finding during the 1665 Great Plague just isn’t distinctive enough and has nothing new to say in this well-ploughed field.

Marshall’s fiancé and star Charlotte Kirk co-wrote the script, which sees her undergo a relentless series of indignities and tortures. Having already lost her mother to Witchfinder General John Moorcroft (a more raspy than normal Sean Pertwee), her husband hangs himself after catching the plague, she’s attacked by slimy squire Steven Waddington and is then accused of being a witch.

Kirk faces days of torture as stoic Grace, which thankfully isn’t dwelt on for too long, though there’s no shortage of blood and stabbings. Pertwee is rather good, underplaying the role rather than going the full Vincent Price/ Matthew Hopkin, it’s just that whenever he appears, it’s in slo-mo, through a sea of dry ice, to a booming refrain from an organ.

Tonally, something is off. The villagers are just not grubby enough – when they shout ‘burn her’ it’s like they’ve wandered in from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And while Kirk is game for the series of miseries inflicted upon her, she looks like she’s just come out of a beauty salon, with hair and makeup intact. It’s these anachronisms, together with some awkward modern language that pull you out of the drama, and at a little under two hours it feels like it’s half an hour too long.

At times, Grace imagines she can see her dead mother and husband, while also being subjected to regular visits and ravishing from a horned devil (Ian Whyte, Game of Thrones). It adds a much-needed layer of doubt to Grace’s testimony – maybe she really is in cohorts with Lucifer – but regrettably this is not resolved. Instead, our heroine turns the tables on her attackers and effects her revenge.

Verdict: Another disappointment in Neil Marshall’s catalogue, this just isn’t memorable or thrilling enough to sit alongside his classics. Worst of all, for a film about witchcraft and a plague, it’s just a bit dull. 5/10

Nick Joy