Based on the 2019 book by Andrew Michael Hurley, Starve Acre is a horror story that will unnerve and confuse viewers, leaving them to unravel the film's threads late into the night. Writer-director Daniel Kokotajlo’s sophomore feature-length project, the film introduces its ‘70s era aesthetic through soft edges, busy patterns, and dull colors, as miles of gloomy English farmland add to its dreary complexion.
Fans of Matt Smith (House of the Dragon, Doctor Who) may seek out Starve Acre for a fix of a familiar face (this time with grown-out hair and an emotionally detached professor vibe). However, even Smith can't keep them safe on the unstable ground of this folk horror story.
Richard (Smith) and his wife, Juliette (Morfydd Clark), share a five-year-old son, Owen (Arthur Shaw). We learn that two years earlier, the family moved back to the countryside in Yorkshire Dales where Richard grew up, hoping the natural setting of Starve Acre would be a refreshing respite from modern city life. However, what should be a relatively boring portrait of rural domesticity turns tense as Owen begins having violent behavioral issues. He attributes these to a voice he hears “whistling” in his head, allegedly belonging to Jack Grey, a local legend he heard about from the family’s longtime neighbor, Gordon.
When tragedy strikes, this voice symbolizes the unseen influences of place and history that haunt its central figures. Juliette struggles with grief and turns to local mystics for help (and a seance). Richard, a university professor, picks up his deceased father’s research into the land of Starve Acre and the old hanging tree that locals believe to be cursed. As he digs toward the roots of the ancient oak, Richard begins to unwind the uncanny mystery that has haunted his family for generations, encountering inexplicable folk histories and creations of life from death.
Even with all the ingredients of a successful escalation, the plot proceeds so slowly that full-blown psychological isolation doesn't have the terrifying effect that it should. Though the story subverts viewers' expectations of what you imagine will happen next, you’ll never be quite sure what you’re looking at even as the story plays out on screen. It doesn’t help that the actors' accents—presumably adopted to approximate Yorkshirers’—are fairly garbled in terms of both diction and sound editing, leaving you to translate and miss out on the next few lines of dialogue.
Though the film echoes the ‘70s horror aesthetic of its cinematic predecessors, there is nothing quite as memorable in the narrative meat of Starve Acre as cult classics like Nick Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1972) or Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973). Still, Starve Acre's characters feel familiar, as they're forced to grieve their pasts alongside their possible futures in a more grotesque version of our world. Ultimately, for fans looking to slip into a trance alongside a couple searching for answers, this film is perfectly serviceable for a slow-build, spine-chilling evening of cinema.
Starve Acre is now in theaters and on digital.
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