Studio:   Lionsgate
Director: Natasha Kermani
Writer:   Natasha Kermani
Producer: Luke Daniels, Greg Lauritano, Sophie Turner, Lucas Jarach, Natasha Kermani, Adam G. Simon, Bull Blumenthal, Patrick Hibler
Stars:    Sophie Turner, Kit Harington, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurence O’Fuarain

Review Score:

Summary:

A woman struggling to survive with her domineering mother-in-law in medieval England feels a dark curse encroaching as the fates of two men in her life challenge her loyalties.

Synopsis:

In medieval England, Anne and her controlling mother-in-law Morwen attend church to pray for the safe return of Seamus, Anne’s husband and Morwen’s son, from war. Desperate for money, Morwen steals a necklace from May, a pregnant churchgoer who comes from wealth. Anne and Morwen then return home to their meager farm where they continue struggling to survive.

While dreaming, Anne relives a childhood memory of her playing with Seamus and their longtime friend Jago. Anne also has a nightmare of Seamus experiencing intense torment. After exchanging the necklace for food that turns out to be rotten, Morwen soothes Anne’s despair by encouraging her to believe Seamus will come back to make the three of them prosperous.

Anne is surprised to see Jago, who was a fisherman before being conscripted as a soldier, rowing into a nearby beach. In retelling the horrors of battle, Jago admits to Anne and Morwen that he abandoned his post. Jago also claims Seamus was killed when the two of them were beset by thieves.

Claiming they were pirates, Morwen secretly kills a man and his son so she and Anne can rob their campsite. Later, Anne sees a knight in black armor continuing to stalk their farm, though Morwen insists Anne only imagined him.

Jago begins making advances on Anne, which she tries to resist even though the attraction is mutual. Morwen warns Anne that Jago may be evil, as demons can take the form of man.

Friar Penros visits the two women. Morwen notices a jarred snake among the friar’s curious belongings. As Penros attempts to offer an expensive quill to Anne, Morwen suddenly slits his throat from behind. Morwen explains to her shocked daughter-in-law that Penros was not a true man of God because he was consumed by greed and lust. Anne helps Morwen dispose of the body, but questions if they did the right thing. Morwen again cautions Anne against giving in to sin.

Noises draw Anne to the forest around the farm. An ominous man rises from the ground to look threateningly in Anne’s direction. Suddenly, the black knight rides by and beheads the man.

Anne runs to Jago claiming she saw a demon. Jago calms Anne by assuring her Morwen’s constant talk of hellfire is nonsense. Jago then persuades Anne to meet him later that night so they can finally be together intimately.

After a dream in which she sees Morwen as a witch drinking blood, Anne sneaks away to have sex with Jago. The next morning, Jago proposes that Anne come live with him, but she insists on remaining with Morwen because she is afraid of the woman. Morwen questions Anne about where she was when she returns, but Morwen does not confront Anne about Jago.

Anne helps Morwen cut the throat of a traveler they subsequently rob. Anne becomes concerned when she finds a wooden horse figurine with the man’s possessions, indicating he was a father.

At church, Anne sees that May gave birth to a newborn baby. Anne gives the carved horse figurine to May as a gift.

Jago comes to the farm demanding to see Anne. Morwen refuses to let Jago inside, insisting she will never allow him to be intimate with Anne again, even if he can give her a child. Jago tries to move past Morwen, but he stops when she puts a knife to his throat. Jago shouts for Anne before leaving.

Questioning Morwen’s control over her, Anne prays for a revelation from the Virgin Mary. Later, she sneaks away to meet Jago again.

While Anne is away, the black knight comes to the farm. From a hiding spot, Morwen notices the knight, who appears to be in debilitating pain, carries a large coin purse decorated with a flower. After the knight leaves, Morwen follows him. The knight stops near a spot where Anne and Jago can be seen being intimate nearby. When his pain causes the knight’s collapse, Morwen uses the opportunity to stab and choke him to death so she can steal the pouch. Morwen removes the knight’s helmet and sees her son Seamus’s disfigured face underneath.

Anne tells Jago how demons preoccupy her thoughts before moving on to say she envies May for being wealthy and having a child. Jago again proposes that Anne leave Morwen to live with him.

Anne returns home to tell Morwen she wants to marry Jago. Morwen responds with accusatory anger, causing Anne to rush back to Jago in fearful resignation.

Following a nightmare of the knight slashing his sword at her, Anne convinces a disinterested Jago to attend Sunday mass with her. At the church, Anne says a prayer for Seamus, which spurs a harsh reaction from Jago that reveals an inconsistency in his story of how Seamus supposedly died.

Anne forces Jago to tell her the truth. Jago recounts how Seamus had grown more violent and callous from the war. Seamus murdered a man to rob him of the flowered coin purse. This act summoned a mysterious black knight who tried to kill them, but Seamus killed the knight. Despite Jago warning him not to, Seamus took the knight’s helmet and was seemingly compelled to put it on. Doing so caused the helmet to fuse to Seamus’s face, cursing him to become the new black knight. Jago fled.

Feeling betrayed because Jago abandoned her husband and lied to her, Anne leaves the church alone. Outside, she finds the church’s priest with his throat slit. Now wearing the knight’s helmet, Morwen pursues Anne back to their farm.

Morwen pleads for help removing the helmet. Anne cracks the helmet with a large cross to get it off Morwen’s face, which is now disfigured. The broken helmet reforms to emit a black cloud that chases the women inside their home.

When her fear and the noises outside subside, Anne opens the door to find the helmet lying on the ground. Morwen warns Anne that the helmet is cursed, but Anne picks it up anyway. Seeing that the helmet has no reaction to her touch, Anne confidently announces that it holds no power over her.

Jago attempts to restart his romance with Anne. Anne responds that she chosen to not belong to any man or to Morwen. Jago forcibly grabs Anne’s arm in frustrated anger. Anne pulls free and leaves as Jago screams at her.

Anne returns to the farm where she still cares for Morwen, who was blinded as well as disfigured by the helmet. Anne is then drawn to the forest where the helmet sits in a chest she unlocks. Anne pulls out the helmet and turns it over in her hands, contemplating what to do next.

Review:

With a cryptic opening that’s almost as impenetrable as Fort Knox, it seems like “The Dreadful” intends for its audience to feel uncomfortably unwelcome. As quick flashes of a screaming, bloodied man cut into a slow creep toward a knight’s helmet lying on a forest floor, the only context offered is a voiceover of indecipherable gibberish unless there’s time to turn on English subtitles, which reveal the words belong to a fortune teller speaking another language. After about a minute of whatever this is, the movie moves to Anne (Sophie Turner) and her mother-in-law Morwen (Marcia Gay Harden) attending a medieval mass. Their priest also speaks another language, which, to unfamiliar ears, may or may not be the same one spoken by the unseen fortune teller.

Custom for dour dramas set in the 12th century dictates that introductions must include depictions of hard-scrabbling lives led by God-fearing farmers. “The Dreadful” obliges with an overlong tour of Anne and Morwen struggling to survive in tough times. Anne plants some seeds. Morwen braids her hair. Anne prepares soup. Morwen sleeps. Viewers feel urges to look at their phones.

Only seven minutes in and the movie already resorts to a dream sequence for dropping another background breadcrumb. Currently, Anne patiently pines for her husband Seamus, Morwen’s son, to return home from war. In her dream, Anne remembers childhood reverie with Seamus and their longtime friend Jago. Bookended by sleepy scenes of pulling beets from the dirt and cutting into a rotten onion, Anne also has a nightmare of Seamus experiencing intense, unexplained pain.

A story finally starts taking shape with the unexpected arrival of Jago (Kit Harington), who fought alongside Seamus in King Richard’s ongoing war before abandoning his post to come home. Jago also brings news that Seamus was killed. From his conspicuously cagey delivery, however, it’s obvious to everyone except the two women that Jago isn’t telling the truth.

Telegraphing every move it will make along the way, “The Dreadful” tells its tepid tale with the most common cinematic language possible. When Anne is shown mourning her husband’s supposed death, she’s dressed in a bonnet, hands clutched to her chest, sunlight from the picturesque beachside setting illuminating tears streaming down her face, all while violins echo her pain with somber wails.

The plainness with which “The Dreadful” is presented drags out its dullness even further. Highly competent in technical execution, the film chooses sensible camera positions, lights scene to balance mood with visibility, and blocks action to fit the frame. But these basics are followed so strictly that the movie has an indistinct style. A perfectly level camera results in horizontal lines that are always straight. Centered objects have equal amounts of negative space on either side. The textbook neatness applied to every image keeps a creative personality from forming, smothering energy with blandness.

Since the setup is so simple, there’s no question “The Dreadful” can ask that its audience can’t answer for themselves. Will Anne and Jago explore their mutual attraction even though she married another man? How will devoutly religious Morwen react if her daughter-in-law betrays the bond with her son? Who could possibly be wearing the helmet belonging to the mysterious black knight stalking around the farm, inspiring fire-and-brimstone ideas about demons, sin, and fighting to find a personal path that’s free of domineering mothers and demanding partners?

It presumably wasn’t much of a problem to sell investors on the idea of reuniting “Game of Thrones” stars Sophie Turner and Kit Harington, even though putting them in a humdrum period piece where they play lovers instead of siblings doesn’t feel like a proper fit. What’s odder is 41 people are credited with the word “Producer” in their title, including the three stars, and all of them were apparently okay with an emaciated script, jaundiced visuals, and a mechanical approach to manufacturing a movie. Too slow to ever reach a burn, “The Dreadful” doesn’t have many logs capable of catching fire in the first place, let alone a spark to ignite them.

Review Score: 35