Following the misfire of 2019’s “Hellboy” reboot, “The Descent” director Neil Marshall returns to his traditional horror roots with “The Reckoning,” an uneven melodrama about an innocent young widow accused of witchcraft during the Great Plague of London, 1665. Striving to be a rousing tale of female empowerment in the face of brutal patriarchy and religious extremism, “The Reckoning” has some powerful moments but relies too heavily on fantasy sequences to deliver scares, and its credibility is significantly compromised by the heroine consistently emerging from extreme torture sessions with barely a hair out of place or a smudge on her makeup. Dedicated horror hounds will be the main takers when this well-produced item hits U.S. theaters and VOD on February 5.
A world apart from arty contemporary folk-horrors such as “The Witch” and “Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse,” Marshall’s new film is more closely related to hellfire European exploitation titles of...
A world apart from arty contemporary folk-horrors such as “The Witch” and “Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse,” Marshall’s new film is more closely related to hellfire European exploitation titles of...
- 2/3/2021
- by Richard Kuipers
- Variety Film + TV
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