Studio: Brainstorm Media
Director: Daniel Kokotajlo
Writer: Daniel Kokotajlo
Producer: Tessa Ross, Juliette Howell, Emma Duffy
Stars: Matt Smith, Morfydd Clark, Erin Richards, Robert Emms, Sean Gilder, Melanie Kilburn, Arthur Shaw
Review Score:
Summary:
Rural folklore takes an unexpected physical form for grieving parents reconciling with their troubled family's dark history.
Review:
Not since "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" has a genre movie's title inspired such an accurate impression of the film's contents as "Starve Acre." The word "starve" calls to mind images of impoverished people stricken by famine, perhaps as part of a celebrity-narrated commercial asking for donations to save skeletal children in underprivileged countries. "Acre" sees its primary usage when discussing dimensions of large land areas like rural ranches and industrial farms. Put the two terms together and you're probably primed for something sleepy involving slow deterioration set in sprawling countryside, not an active slasher where victims meet violent ends on the bloody blades of a dangerous utility tool. The former, not the latter, definitely describes "Starve Acre."
Should your starting point still not be correctly calibrated, the first minute should get you there with a fade into white-on-back text packing three full stanzas of a poem titled "The Dandelion" onto the screen. Next up are static shots of quiet vistas where horizon lines lie low so the picture can be swathed in hazy skies overhead. Finally, a few mentions of football/soccer following a brief scene of cricket being played at a family fair firmly establish the film couldn't be any more English unless it served tea and crumpets while you watched.
Based on the same-named book by author Andrew Michael Hurley, "Starve Acre" tells the tale of Juliette and Richard Willoughby, parents to a young boy, Owen, whose disturbing act at the aforementioned fair compels them to consult a doctor regarding their son's troubling mental health. Richard's own troubled past weaves its way in by way of childhood memories where Richard suffered abuse from a father who forced him to strip naked and stand in a freezing field outside their family's farmhouse. Both of these father-son bonds end up connected by local folklore involving an old oak tree on their land that 17th-century pagans believed to be a doorway to other worlds.
The dreariness draping Richard and Juliette, who respectively spend an average day staring outside or collecting rocks with Owen, gets even gloomier after tragedy strikes. That's when figurative family ghosts reemerge to haunt their heads with mournfulness, melancholy, and more staring into emptiness.
During the approximate hour when these (un)events occur, "Starve Acre" fills silent spaces with sequences dominated by sluggish zooms, humming tones on the soundtrack, and staging where characters read newspapers or visit medical and academic offices. "Starve Acre" is not visually thrilling. Juliette picks at a stitched blanket. Richard trudges across snowy ground with his sullen head hanging low. It's strange how Matt Smith can be dynamic as Dr. Who or equal parts cunning and darkly comedic on "House of the Dragon," yet his indie film roles like this one here cast him as dully dour without any of the charismatic smolder he has on TV.
I acknowledge the tinge of slightly flippant cynicism to my preceding words, yet I've still tried to present "Starve Acre" as objectively as possible without spoiling the story. Movies made almost entirely out of mood just don't do much for me anymore. Neither do cautionary tales intent on teaching the redundant lesson that the dead should stay buried when horror has already cemented the notion that no one should ever monkey with resurrections, especially when they involve occult rituals.
However, the mid-road score also acknowledges that if artful atmosphere fills your cup, "Stave Acre" might be the folk horror equivalent of "Citizen Kane," or at least enough to satisfy a one-time itch for slow-burn suspense. Antithetical to its blander beginnings, "Starve Acre" finishes surprisingly strong with a creepy climax punctuated by an unforgettable image. It just takes so long to get there, passive viewers risk being disengaged by the time the payoff finally fulfills the plot's promise. This eerie ending will either be too little, too late for those who've already tuned out the tepid tone, or an impressively explosive crescendo for anyone transfixed by the film's measured, subtle build of suggestive darkness.
Review Score: 55
While Cooper desperately searches for an escape route, viewers desperately need to put disbelief into a deep freeze, because preposterous developments pile up in a hurry.