The North Witch (directed by Bruce Wemple - The Hangman, Lake Artifact) had an intriguing premise to it, one that drew me in. It was a shame then that a lot of the one hour twenty minute run time saw me feeling a bit let down, mainly due to how rushed the set-up for this was. I was actually ready to write this off as a terrible film, but there were elements that did appeal, and I'm happy to say it does manage to pull things back together somewhat for the final act.
Having recently been kicked out of the home she had been renting with two others due to them not liking her, Madison (Anna Shields - Lake Artifact, and who also wrote this one) phones an old friend to see if she can stay at her home. The friend, Gemma (Jessy Holtermann - The Hangman) tells Maddie that she is actually just about to go on a camping trip with friends to a remote area in Canada named 'The Barren Lands'. There is a legend of a mysterious vanishing cabin known as 'The Barren Cabin', and Gemma and her friends, who include among them Laura (Brianna Cala), Alice (Ameerah Briggs - The Hangman, Split), and Talia (Kaitlyn Lunardi - The Hangman) are hoping to find evidence of this house while on their trip. On the very first night there, the group find themselves caught up in a terrible storm, in the chaos they are all separated, with Maddie discovering an old cabin that she decides to take shelter in, unable to go too far away from it due to a bad leg injury she sustained during the storm. A few days later she is joined by Talia, but the woman's increasingly disturbing behaviour leads Maddie to suspect something isn't right with her, and she begins to fear for her safety.
This started great, an opening found footage style blurb that speaks about the legend of the vanishing cabin. A not so great ending blurb that attempts to sell the idea that during the making of the movie the film crew experienced weird goings on. This didn't seem to have anything to do with anything as up to that point The North Witch was set up like a traditional film. There are a cast of five friends initially but I wondered just what the point of all these people were. The story moves forward at a lightning pace, with Maddie finding herself alone in the cabin before even fifteen minutes of the film has passed. The set-up felt rushed to me, and due to most the characters having had barely any lines, or character development, I couldn't care less that they all seem to have vanished, likely dead. Much of the film has Maddie as the sole character, even when she is joined by Talia this still remains the same, as that character always seemed to be off doing her own thing. I did think Talia was the highlight of the movie, the actress getting to be really crazy without seeming over the top, a great range of insane looking facial expressions.
That own thing Talia was doing was mainly performing increasingly sinister self mutilation, from smashing her mouth in with a hammer, to getting into a bath of boiling hot water, to slamming a compartment drawer onto her arm until bone shows! It did all look good though, decent special effects selling the damage being done.
There is a strange method of some of the potentially more interesting ideas taking place in scenes that aren't shown on screen. Most of the film takes place in the cabin, a place that looked far too new for a building that is apparently from the sixties or seventies. I guess you could defend it by saying a building that disappears and reappears might not age in a normal way. The cabin interior never felt like it was in the middle of a forest, with the windows always not really showing anything. The few scenes set outside seemed in a different location entirely, with an altogether older looking building. Maddie wasn't the most likeable of protagonists, but she was fine enough. I did feel peril for her, trapped in a building with an increasingly erratic friend. I felt that the moments where she watches videos on her friends phone in a found footage manner were very good, some of those clips felt like they would have benefitted by being shown on screen, but it was a good way to show some of the more messed up things.
I wasn't that taken with the story, the idea that the cabin had been home to a witch in the past wasn't explained that well. More details on the backstory of the place would have been good, as well as more reaction from the characters that they were staying in a place that was only said to have existed in legend, as they seemed mostly unfazed to be staying there. Thankfully, the last twenty minutes are were things become to come together a lot better. There are a whole variety of twists, introduction of new characters, and a feeling that what the viewer is being shown can't really be trusted. I thought this third act was good enough to claw back an additional rotting zombie head to my score.
A rushed first act, a long meandering second act, and an exciting third act make for a witch based horror that may have been poor on occasion, but also had plenty of strong moments to it. The North Witch comes from High Fliers Films.
SCORE:
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