Director – Daniel Kokotajlo – 2023 – UK – Cert. 15 – 98m
***
As a couple become mired in grief following the death of their son, their behaviour turns increasingly obsessive, erratic and violent – terrifying and unsettling folk horror is out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 6th and on Blu-ray, DVD and BFI Player from Monday, October 21st
Thinking the fresh air of the countryside will benefit their son’s health, the family of Richard (Matt Smith), Juliette (Morfydd Clark), and their young son Owen (Arthur Shaw) move from their urban home to the wilds of the Yorkshire countryside and the house, named Starve Acre, in which Richard grew up. Owen doesn’t respond too well to the new environment. An unfortunate incident occurs offscreen at a village event, in which an animal gets stabbed in the eye and Owen’s clothing is stained with blood.
His understandably concerned parents take him to Dr. Monk (Roger Barclay) for advice. It isn’t immediately obvious as to what exactly is wrong, and the situation is set to worsen for the couple.
In Richard’s opinion, it doesn’t help that their hardened, elderly neighbour Gordon (Sean Gilder) visits quite often to fill the boy’s head with tales of a mysterious Jack Grey. Tragedy strikes when ** SPOILER ALERT ** Owen succumbs to a fatal asthma attack.
Their grief propels the couple on an increasingly strange path. Richard remembers that there used to be a tree in the garden of the property, which has long since disappeared. Richard, a professional archaeologist, becomes obsessed with it, and sets up a dig in the garden to find it with the help of his assistant Steven (Robert Emms).
Richard unearths the remains of a large hare which reanimates itself, becoming an object of motherly affection for Juliette, who nurtures it like a substitute child. Juliette’s concerned sister Harrie (Erin Richards) frequently visits the house. Gordon introduces them to medium Mrs. Forde (Melanie Kilburn), who helps the family hold a séance. The obsessions from their grief will propel the couple into unexpected and violent actions with devastating consequences for those around them…
After Apostasy (2017), the remarkable drama about Jehovah’s Witnesses, based in no small part on his own upbringing within that religious sect, writer-director Kokotajlo turns his attention to the adaptation of a folk horror novel, Andrew Michael Hurley’s Starve Acre. The result s a slow-burning, pressure cooker of a film in which a couple in tragic family circumstances slowly sink themselves deeper and deeper into a spiritual mire.
There is much to admire in Kokotajlo’s direction – the cinematography that seems to suffuse the visual in sad, muted shades, the impressive execution and use of animatronics, framing and editing to bring the hare to life as a believable beast, superb performances by the cast, with Smith and Clark particularly good as the central couple.
The bereaved couple, its memorable locales and the presence of a medium going some way to propel the plot to its terrible and shocking conclusion recall seminal British horror classic Don’t Look Now (Nic Roeg, 1973). Where that film’s husband was a specialist in church restoration, this one’s is an archaeologist, which doesn’t seem that far removed. Perhaps that similarity is found in the book, which was published in 2019. Or perhaps it’s something Kokotajlo brings to it.
And yet, for all that bravura cinematic aesthetic piled onto it, and the skill worked into the actors’ performances as they explore the material, the souls of the couple at the centre of the film are a void; they way they handle (or don’t handle) their grief, with its terrible consequences for those around them, was something I personally found near impossible to relate to. Perhaps if I’d lost a child (a terrible thing for a parent to go through) I would feel differently.
Strange though the Jehovah’s Witnesses are in Apostasy, I could completely understand where they were coming from. The couple here, however, as they proceed on their bizarre and increasingly violent journey, not so much.
I’m too close to this film at the time of this review’s writing to see how the film will stand the test of time. I honestly can’t tell whether it will achieve great resonance or simply turn out to be completely forgettable.
Incidentally, if you find yourself facing parental grief, the documentary A Love That Never Dies (Jane Harris, Jimmy Edmonds, 2018)may prove helpful.
Starve Acre is out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, September 6th and on Blu-ray, DVD and BFI Player from Monday, October 21st.
Trailer: