WYKE WREAKE

WYKE WREAKE

Hunger Cult Films burst onto the pages of SGM last year when Stu tackled their fascinatingly dark WHERE THE DOGS DIVIDE HER. Staying firmly put in the realms of gloom, the Rutley brothers are back with what they claim is "England’s oldest Ghost Story" in another tale of human despair.

Kate (Gemma Deerfield) is a tortured soul. Having persevered through a childhood riddled with extreme sibling rivalry, she then had to deal with her mum dying of cancer. Kate now finds herself in the abyss of a new tragedy. The heartbreak of losing her only son, her baby Sean, has led to her mind spiralling out of control while trying to make sense of this extreme adversity. Apparently sick and tired of seeking peace in the conventional way, Kate has developed some eccentricities which have pushed her toward the occult.

But she can’t do it alone. Somewhat reluctantly, her sister Bec (Edwina Lea) and her boyfriend Thom (Leon Florentine) accompany her in the bleak surroundings of her deceased baby’s room. Crisp packets and empty cans litter the cot while the once jolly wallpaper is now swathed with glued on newspaper cuttings, photographs of serial killers and crudely daubed demonic symbols. Her aim is to converse with the dead in order to find the missing answers and possibly an antidote to her swelling grief. Her method is the talking board more commonly known as an Ouija board.

Kate’s vigorous referrals to ‘energies and ‘spirits’, is just about enough to combat Thom’s unwillingness to partake in the séance. Bec, meanwhile, is completely sceptical and only agrees to join in when a sisterly argument leads to a compromise that sees Kate agree to indeed sit down with Bec the next day and have an open talk.

As the planchette glides effortlessly across the varnished surface, spelling out a sinister place of child sacrifice, Wyke Wreake, we see what the trio cannot – the entity they are speaking with. Alex (Jon Stoley) used to be an "ordinary man with a family" but is now locked in his own personal Hell. Excruciatingly restrained, Alex dwells in a place with human innards rotting around him along with newborn carcasses crudely affixed to the walls. So when Kate gets the breakthrough she craves, will it provide her much sought after truths or possibly unleash misery and pain beyond her darkest nightmares…?

Well what a laugh a minute this was! Anyone that moaned about THE WOMAN IN BLACK’s liberal certification from the BBFC should be given a free copy of this movie with some accompanying rope and a step ladder. From start to finish the narrative was opaquely dark on many levels.

Let’s face it there aren’t many things more upsetting than a parent losing their child, especially in violently mysterious circumstances. It’s that concept that makes for the core of the story. Without resorting to sensational gore, the gritty aesthetic contained some hideous imagery throughout. The depictions of Hell manipulated the viewer into believing they had sussed the picture out early on before flipping the focus of the characters inside out.

Without revealing too much of the plot, the movie flits back and forth from our present day trio to self-proclaimed criminal back in the 1970’s. How these two timelines intertwine is at times lurid but completely absorbing all the same as the narrative acutely twists and turns.

But for all the explicit depictions of death featured throughout the picture, there was a standout eerie sequence that was quite simply brilliantly staged. It featured an authentically looking black and white children’s TV program complete with a cheery 1970’s presenter and her puppet partner both fuzzily depicted on the portable cathode tube TV. The ebullience of the double act’s routine as they told a twisted bedtime story (and ingeniously contributed to the plot) was hugely original and genuinely unnerving.

There was however a few elements which could possibly dismantle the whole thing. I was slightly irritated by the unwarranted piercing ‘interference’ shrill that signalled we were travelling back to the earlier decade. There was enough production value in the different eras to show the difference without resorting to ‘found footage-esque’ tactics.

The Ouija board scenes were also a little out of context with the menace of the movie. The enigmatic lath just worked a bit too fluently and politely considering we were dealing with such malevolence. The extent of Kate’s occult training was somewhat unconvincing as well. A picture of Crowley here, a painted inverted cross there radiated teenage angst rather then seduce the viewer to empathising with the grieving mum whose on the verge of a mental breakdown.

Depending on your standpoint as to how major these flaws are will no doubt dictate the overall impression of the movie: imaginatively grim or merely a trite representation of ‘evil mysticism’.

The "Festival Edition" DVD I was supplied with presented the movie in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio and simply had a "Play Movie" option on the basic menu screen. In keeping with the baleful atmosphere, the colours were notably toned down while the Dolby Digital 2.0 audio was adequate without being mind blowing. The audio did contain an unsettling and unrelenting score sandwiched between some haunting folk melodies that helped maintain the austere atmosphere throughout.

Overall I did actually enjoy the picture as it was refreshingly dark but the aforementioned faults hindered the movie a little too often. Definitely worth a watch but for extra impact, why not give it a whir this Mothering Sunday!

Review by Marc Lissenburg


 
Released by Hungercult Films
Not Rated
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