Call me old fashioned, but folk horror loses something when it’s drenched in obvious VFX. Folk horror is earthy. It’s messy. It smells like the mothballs in your grandmother’s closet and creaks like a rusty attic door. Daniel Kokotajlo, director and co-writer of the new indy horror film Starve Acre, understands this simple truth.
Content note: this review contains references to child death.
Starve Acre, based on the beautiful 2019 novel by Andrew Michael Hurley (who co-wrote the film’s script), tells the story of Richard (Matt Smith) and Juliette (Morfydd Clark), a couple in the 1970s who moves to Richard’s ancestral home in the English countryside. However, their young son Ewan begins to act strangely, engaging in shocking acts of violence, and Richard and Juliette are devastated when Ewan suddenly dies. Afterwards, Richard and Juliette find out that their nightmare has barely begun, and they descend into a haze of occult rituals, disturbing folklore, and a presence in the desolate landscape that isn’t done feeding just yet.
I’ll acknowledge, right off the bat, that Hurley’s book is one of my favorite horror novels, so it’s hard for me to judge the film adaptation objectively. I’m happy to report, though, that when it comes to all the best parts of Starve Acre, the film delivers. While the book jumps around in time, the story in the film is more straightforward and linear, but the change in narrative structure still preserves all the best parts of the novel. In particular, there’s a sequence involving a rabbit that has lived in my head ever since I read the book, and the movie mostly nails it.
One of the best aspects of the film is that, thanks to its grainy-looking film stock and eerie score, it’s indistinguishable from a horror flick from the ’70s. It’s strange to see Smith and Clark in a film that feels like it was made before I was born, and the look and feel of the film elevate the subject matter. Again: folk horror fans love this stuff because it feels like an old wool sweater with blood encrusted on the cuffs, and Kokotajlo obviously gets it.
What makes Starve Acre so compelling is that the mind-altering antagonist gradually overtakes Richard and Juliette, even as each thinks they’re the rational one. Juliette is broken by grief and unanswered questions. Richard is so caught up in his research on a buried oak tree (why do you think they buried it, Richard!? Leave it alone!) that he barely notices as his own hold on reality starts to go. In Starve Acre, grief and the supernatural reinforce each other.
All in all, Starve Acre is a deliciously creepy treat for folk horror fans. With its weathered, vintage feel and a bucolic landscape bristling with menace, this film hearkens back to classics like The Wicker Man and Rosemary’s Baby. Admittedly, it doesn’t have the same explosive climaxes as other horror films, but if you’re looking for a moody, atmospheric story, Starve Acre will feel like home.
Starve Acre opens in theaters on July 26.
Published: Jul 15, 2024 12:13 pm