The Dark and the Wicked (Fantasia Fest)
**Seen for the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.
Well, if this ending doesn’t repeatedly kick you in the nuts…
Bryan Bertino’s movie begins creepy, and continues it at a simmer as two siblings come home to their parents’s farm house. Their father is dying, and they want to help out. Their mother, however, has implored them to not come. There’s a reason for that, and Louise (Marin Ireland) and Michael (Michael Abbott Jr.) are about to learn the hard way.
“The Dark and the Wicked” repackages familiar ideas into something new in it dealings with a family preyed upon by something evil. You may have flashbacks to films like “The Conjuring,” “The Witch” and “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” among many others, throughout, but Bertino has done something interesting, and made a movie that delves into ideas of faith in the face of evil, children who learn unexpected things about their estranged parents, and the occult. His scare moments are loud, but they are built up to quietly, and it’s a very unsettling atmosphere he’s created.
Everything leads up to that ending, and that’s where the film will make its lasting impact on viewers. There are haunting moments throughout the film- the mother at a cutting board; her and her husband’s goats, and their eventual fate; a priest (Xander Berkley) who pops up, and may have knowledge of what’s going on; and when a family friend comes with news. The ending is what people will remember, however, and it’s a mammoth gut punch, pulled off in a powerful, simple way that will be difficult to get out of your head.
