MY CALL: While not in the typical vein of British folk horror, I think fans of the subgenre would love this beautifully written film which deconstructs the process of a ritual down to its nuance. Exemplary filmmaking and acting, atop the thoughtful writing, make this a true hidden gem, overlooked by mainstream genre fans. MORE MOVIES LIKE A Dark Song: I’d compare this most closely to The Skeleton Key (2005). Spell (2020) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) also provide interesting approaches to the occult in horror. For fans of slow and steady, creepy, atmospheric horror, I’m inclined to suggest patient yet dire atmospheric revelations like The House of the Devil (2009), The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015), Midsommar (2019), The Witch (2016), Hereditary (2017) and The Dark and the Wicked (2020).
A woman of mysterious motives, Sophia (Catherine Walker; Cursed, Rig 45) rents a house in Wales under secretive circumstances. She hires occultist Joseph (Steve Oram; Kill List, Altar, The Cabal) to perform a ritual for her, for which she has been preparing for half a year with abstinence, soul cleansing, and dietary practices. He talks to her as if being hired as a business consultant; very to the point, results-oriented, brass tacks. The poignancy of their dialogue is that of a well-written one-act play, wherein the set could hardly matter. We’re only focused on them and their words.
We quickly come to learn that the occult process they intend to endeavor is long, committed and taxing. It may take the better part of a year. The ritual seems tedious, unsensational, and grounded. No swirling ectoplasm, ghostly voices, seances or slamming doors; just drinking some blood let peacefully into a drinking glass, extensive readings and vigils, some elaborate chalk-drawn circles and glyphs on the floors, and a lot of interpersonal trust and control dynamics. Sophia has early doubts about the progress of the ritual, and Joseph assures her it’s working. He is always in control as the ritual master, and she must do as he says to ensure the ritual’s successful completion. Over the course of months, a relationship dynamic forms through a filter of cabin fever, disbelief versus gaslighting, and codependence.
However, quite different in this film is the progress of this long-term ritual and the subtlety of the black magic. Its design, incremental goals, and clearly defined objectives (e.g., working on sealing the 7th chamber over time) feel as discrete as an engineering schematic for the infrastructure of a building. Weeks and months into the ritual, they continue to draw and write on pages and the floor, working out progress as well as problems desperately reading dark esoteric scripture, as if actively architecting this ritual schematic in real time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen ritual told on film with such attention to time, patience, endurance and tedium. In that respect, this may be among the very most interesting “occult ritual-based” films I’ve ever seen. In many ways I’m reminded of The Skeleton Key (2005), which gives the process-long perspective of the object of a ritual, instead of the perspective of its evokers; the typical horror perspective.
Also intriguing is the strong emphasis on intention. The ritual will not be seen through—or not with the desired result—if the intention of the ritual is not honest and clearly known to both the occultist driving the magic and the appointee, whose soul must be pure when engaging in this black magic.
In terms of horror, this film is quite understated. The dread and scares are deliberately minimal. However, the atmosphere is inescapably constant. That’s what this film is all about, though. Atmosphere from the filmmaking perspective, and an exploration of conducting rituals from the content perspective. Truly, the third act “horrors” could have been omitted entirely. I might have even preferred it as such. Because, for its content, this is one of the most interesting horror films I’ve seen in a long time and a riveting viewing experience. Moreover, these two actors grace us with outstanding performances, delivering a great deal of gravity in the subtlety of their line delivery and a broad range of strong emotions. That was critical for this film to work at all. Without my investment in them, this could have become a boring slog. And now let’s turn to the creator, writer and director Liam Gavin (The Haunting of Bly Manor). Wow. Just wow. Sign me up for anything else he does—and why on Earth hasn’t he done more?
Everyone involved in this film seems to have given it everything with the purest intentions. Oddly enough, that’s what likewise evokes the successful ritual of film.
