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Pardon Our French and Craig Ford present Craig Ford’s ‘The Witching Hour’ which uses sprinkles of horror for the complexity of a child. Along with the father’s death, our leading character has to deal with an overworked mother and endless petty bullying from students while trying to understand their identity and sexuality. Well, you could say that there’s the perfect recipe for a horror film.
The third and final short segment in the portion of the series called ‘Queer Bedtime Stories’ commences with piercingly familiar sounds from a violin that frequently appears in horror films. As we parade around a young boy’s dark bedroom, a ticking sound and crescendo of music might have you ready to jump in your seat, but we learn it is but a piece of furniture that has fallen there was nothing to be afraid of. Oh, but there is.
There are some elements of the film I must mention, and that is the accurate depiction and extraordinary attention to detail in the set. Craig grew up on set of The Witching Hour when he watched 70s classic horrors and the set for The Witching Hour does not disappoint.
The young boy has both a bedroom sanctuary and prison that draws us into his fear-ridden world. Looking back, being queer and coming out was far more daunting than it is now.
As the story progresses, life appears better in the light of day. The classic, yet all too familiar interactions between mother and son are skillfully approached as the son’s voice is overheard on the other end of the bedroom door. This gives us, the audience, more empathy towards our young boy; something, which is extremely necessary when trying to grasp the terrifying things that haunt him.
Through the lens of the exploitative treatment the young boy encounters at the hands of bullies, in addition to an ever-present parent being suspicious, he is forced to grapple with the life-altering period of losing his father. When discussing ‘The Witching Hour’ it is impossible NOT to commend its careful and accurate handling of a myriad of heady topics and themes. Alongside everything else, the boy’s grief allows us to feel his emotional turmoil while he reflects on happier days spent with his father at the beach.
They offer us extra insight into why our young boy is in such hell.
While I would never like to spoil an ending for a spectator, I believe there can be different interpretations of the final appearances after meeting the protagonist’s mother played by Harriet Thorpe. We feel convinced her son is hiding something from her, which is all too common at his age. However, as the scene ends we wonder was the imagination more than the wild fantasies of a troubled young boy.
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