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In the 2000’s UK director Neil Marshall could have made a move to the big leagues. He gained positive reviews for his first feature in 2002, the cult werewolf creature feature Dog Soldiers. He followed that up in 2005 with the bona fide classic in the horror genre, The Descent. I remember seeing that majestically haunting picture after all the buzz, wondering who was the one screeching during the numerous terrifying moments, only to realize it was me. Marshall clearly was getting opportunities. But, of course, Hollywood came calling and while the next films weren’t all that creative, they weren’t bad, although they didn’t do well at the box office. After retreating to television for the next decade, Marshall didn’t make another film until the attempts to reboot the Hellboy franchise and we all know how that ended.
The moment I saw the name Marshall associated with an indie horror film such as “The Reckoning”, I was all over the chance to see it. Initially, I found the premise of the movie quite interesting. The topics of witch hunts during The Great Plague at the end of the 17th century combined with Marshall’s unique work made me think that this might be a fine return to form for the him. Later new details made me suspicious. The film appeared to be co-written, executive produced, and starred by Charlotte Kirk. The Charlotte Kirk that is engaged to Marshall? With this revelation, everything I was processing started to fit in. While Kirk working on this project for Marshall makes sense, I was still hoping that this wasn’t just a project for the lovebirds to hang out and collect a paycheck. With my expectations of them tying the knot after the release of “The Reckoning” sinking on me, I was baffled. With everything that I have mentioned, I will be shocked if they ever get married.
The Reckoning is one of the worst movies ever produced in the modern world. It is as laughably horrendous as it gets. I can sit through a lot of ‘em but when I say I actually tried to make use of the delete button on this movie several times, understand that this experience is equal parts abysmal. If you’re planning on getting a glimpse of what Kirk, Marshall, and Company have cooked up, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say this would be torturous. (Just so we are very clear, I would not do that pretending I don’t have to review this will be quite out of character to me. Doesn’t matter what the situation is, I’m in it for the long haul!) Whatever promise of lifted claws was contained in the very real story of women falsely accused of witchery and subjected to brutal torture and death, is now the possession of your fear of never escaping the fictitious cap d’ repulsive imagery, sets where a distressing wind would knock them over, and acting so bad it would make you think that a chicken in a cage playing Tic-Tac-Toe was in fact the Russian playwright Chekov.
Marshall should be praised for attempting to follow up a complicated title sequence that compliments the production with a jumpcut to a family being evicted from their home in slow motion. He then shows a lengthy scene of a new mother, Grace Haverstock, burying her husband Joseph, who, by the way, does not end well for him…he ends up hanging from a noose. I wasn’t able to confirm this and I certainly didn’t write it down, but I’m fairly positive that Marshall is self-editing, which would explain all of his decisions. Unfortunately, this sluggish approach severely hurts the movie’s progression. Grace has property but without a male figure to support her, she approaches the landowner with a request for a rent extension while he isn’t willing to entertain a different. He refuses to entertain ‘a different kind of payment’ that she isn’t ready to ‘fu…I mean fork over’.
Back then, nothing was worse than a man with an injured pride, with a finger to point to a woman who has recently turned down his advances, calling her a witch. Pretty soon, Grace’s visions grow to such an extent that she finds herself in a prison brimming with pestilence, and a horned devil that wants to see her without clothes and greased up, if at all possible. No one will step up to save Grace, not with her standing in front of the Witchfinder General Moorcroft (Sean Pertwee, Event Horizon) and his aide Ursula Magowan, a former witch that Moorcroft set fire to and survived , and now works to help him set fire to other women. (You know, a real right on gal. How nice of you, Ursula!) Grace does have history with Moorcroft, unbeknownst to him, and as he gets more and more cruel in his attempts to get a confession out of her, she runs the risk of asking for a bit too much payback.
To achieve full transparency, I need to state that The Reckoning has some storylines that I feel were not put to good use. To put it mildly, if the directors had better resources, this movie could have had more positives. The entire production is what sinks the film and makes it smell like sore. I’m sure Kirk and co-screenwriters Marshall and Edward Evers-Swindell MUST have done SOME kind of research for this storyline. It’s just such a waste of a story with such silly execution. On that note, let me say, for those who do not outright laugh when they first see the small “town” in the middle of a green field, applaud to you I guess. It looks as if someone cut out a castle from a children’s book, then scanned it and photoshopped it on top of a postcard. Really rough.
If you’ve ever questioned how much eye makeup could withstand lashes in the 17th century, scan the film around the average mark and check out Kirk’s outstanding eyeliner and mascara. She has been whipped to an inch of her life and her face is stunning darling! Although her body is put through the wringer (one scene in particular is so far over the line of good taste I’m not surprised it took over a year for that film to find a distributor) she always has her lipstick and foundation on point. The rest of the cast are best left unmentioned in the hopes they will all either go on with their lives in a different chosen profession or get better next time. The only one I will call out is Magowan who is a bright spot as the only character that appears increasingly conflicted (at least adequately) as the brutality against Grace continues. She is clearly showing signs of someone who has suffered similar pain and lived to tell the tale.
Through the fabric veil and black robes that cloak her body, we can see worry grow within her eyes. This is a performance that is lively amidst a very dead movie.
It is the very dregs of dregs of cinema with fishmongers exhibiting even lower standards. The one saving grace, one hopes, is that Marshall will make a return to television, stripping him of the aggrandizing feature length films. This has been the case for almost all of his work known by many, but in reality, very few people actually saw it. Let us move on because it’s blunders of this nature that vindicate Marshall’s erstwhile good name. I won’t go into all the mess covering Kirk and do investigate on google yourself, but starring in this awful piece is hardly going to do any more harm than she has already accepted. Much more like a last question of The Reckoning is in some shape or form, are you prepared to waste two utterly obnoxiously bad hours.
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