By Adrian Amiro-Wilson
Starve Acre is a newly released folk horror film starring Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark, based on the book by Andrew Michael Hurley.
This is a quiet, haunting film. It is a bleak and unsettling ride that burns both slow and bright. This story weaves its characters and landscape into an original dark and twisted fairytale.
Like the best gothic inspired tales, the landscape itself feels like a living presence. The imagery is so breathtaking it feels completely alive and supernatural.
The characters are tragic, flawed, and haunted by grief. They are consumed by childhood trauma, the loss of a strange child, and the need for connection. Matt Smith (who definitely does not wear a bow tie) is absolutely amazing. You can feel all of his subdued anger and resentment slowly bubbling underneath his mostly quiet demeanor. He becomes obsessed with a promise he made to his child which leads him on a path to digging up his past... literally, as he is an archeologist. In doing so, he uncovers something sinister, and unique.
Morfydd Clark drips with inconsolable grief and guilt. She is constantly searching for comfort or forgiveness, either from her husband, her sister, or other mysterious forces. Through, most of the film she seems like a ghostly creature herself, looking for something in which to cling to.
The supernatural elements in this story story have other plans for them. It uses changeling mythology in a new and innovative way, much like the film Lamb. It also expresses small resemblances to The Wicker Man (1974), and She Will (2021). It uses the evil men do to taint things long after they are forgotten.
The manifestation of the hare is so symbolic, and quite honestly, disturbing in a way I had not yet seen. This is not the silly rabbit from Monty Python but it absolutely embodies both violence and innocence. It gives a voice to the trauma of both characters.
This film is alive with dread from start to finish. It is folk horror at its best. It aches so beautifully and terrifyingly human and closes with none other than Matt Smith singing a haunting tune that has stuck with me for days.
STARVE ACRE is currently available to rent on Apple TV and Amazon Prime.
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Adrian Amiro-Wilson is a macabre artist, jewelry maker, and horror enthusiast out of Texas. Please be sure to visit their page HERE for much more!
