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TADFF Review: ‘The Wretched’ Builds a Frightening New Folktale

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The Wretched

Written and directed by brothers Brett and Drew Pierce, The Wretched is a twisted fairy tale that creates its own fun and freaky folklore. With the sensibilities of a classic 80s horror and the spark of a modern indie horror, the film strikes a good balance to introduce its own ideas.

In a bit of a witchy mix between Rear Window and Fright Night, the film follows defiant teenage Ben who — with a broken arm and his parents facing an imminent divorce — is sent to spend his summer with his father in a small coastal town. As Ben casually observes his new neighborhood, he begins to notice strange activity and soon finds himself facing off against a thousand year-old witch that wears the skin of her victims to accomplish her gruesome goals. 

The technical elements of The Wretched are thoroughly impressive. For the sound design, the Pierce brothers found the perfect fit with Eliot Connors, whose other sound design credits include Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Aquaman, and Star Trek Beyond. So much of the terror of the film is steeped in the crunching, snapping, and slopping sounds that crawl under your skin; they’re visceral. You can feel every sound effect shiver through you, enriching an image that’s only partially visual. 

via Toronto After Dark

The lighting draws focus and elevates atmosphere, pulling the audience deep into the dark woods of the story. Shifting from bright daylight in the open air of a marina to the focused point of a flashlight or porch light when all else is steeped in darkness, the lighting leads us through the tone of each scene. It highlights just the right elements, plunging all else in shadow — which gives graceful flexibility to the film’s practical effects. 

Exemplary practical effects are in the Pierce brothers’ blood — their father worked on the effects for The Evil Dead back in 1981. Part of the magic of creating your own monster lore is that you can really control its rules and details. The Pierce brothers take full advantage of this, developing a vocabulary of effects and effective visuals to build their beast.

Shifting skin and ragged talons punctuate the witch’s feral design as she claws her way through each scene. Her presence is announced by tearing flesh, masterfully accomplished by the effects team. One performance-based effect is the twitching, snapping physicality of the witch. It’s a simple detail, but it’s consistently creepy as hell. 

via Toronto After Dark

As connoisseurs of horror films, it’s easy to become jaded by the tolerance we build to any horrific elements. It becomes a bragging point to announce that a film simply wasn’t scary. Watching The Wretched, I thought on what the film must feel like for the casual audience member who perhaps hasn’t developed that thick skin. I imagine it would certainly be effective. Instead of relying on jump scares, the film uses mood and tension to escalate the danger — and it’s genuinely scary. If you’re looking to tickle that part of your brain that longs for a classic spine-tingling atmospheric horror, The Wretched has you covered. 

In the spirit of traditional fairy tales and classic 80s horror, it’s the children who are in real danger. When it comes to its victims, The Wretched pulls no punches. We are confronted with the reality of the witch’s hunt early on in a shocking sequence that sets the tone for the rest of the film. Nothing is sacred and no one is safe. 

via Toronto After Dark

Overall, each actor’s performance is on point — there are no real weak links here. But the standout characters are the three female leads; Mallory (Piper Curda), Abbie (Zarah Mahler), and Sara (Azie Tesfai). Each character is well rounded with strong personality and gumption, presenting traditional roles in an atypical way. The teen love interest, Mallory, is an endearing and quirky comic relief. Young mother Abbie is a confident, tattooed, deer dressing dynamo. Dad’s new girlfriend, Sara, has her own sense of agency outside of that relationship — she doesn’t have a large presence in the film, but she’s very well utilized. 

These archetypes aren’t uncommon at all, but they’re often presented in a rather two-dimensional, stereotypical way. The Wretched treats these characters as the unique individuals they are, with each actress breathing life into their role. Notably, Curda as Mallory is wonderfully charming and she steals every scene she’s in. 

Ultimately, The Wretched has the bones of a classic 80s horror, but has been polished and refurbished to make an entirely different beast. The Pierce brothers obviously put a great deal of love and care into the film, showing their passion for the art of filmmaking and the horror genre as a whole. It’s a humble offering, but it shows great promise for the future. We’ll just hope they don’t shed that horror skin. 

The Wretched

The Wretched via IMDb

The Wretched is now available to rent on most streaming services.

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Another Creepy Spider Movie Hits Shudder This Month

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Good spider films are a theme this year. First, we had Sting and then there was Infested. The former is still in theaters and the latter is coming to Shudder starting April 26.

Infested has been getting some good reviews. People are saying that it’s not only a great creature feature but also a social commentary on racism in France.

According to IMDb: Writer/director Sébastien Vanicek was looking for ideas around the discrimination faced by black and Arab-looking people in France, and that led him to spiders, which are rarely welcome in homes; whenever they’re spotted, they’re swatted. As everyone in the story (people and spiders) is treated like vermin by society, the title came to him naturally.

Shudder has become the gold standard for streaming horror content. Since 2016, the service has been offering fans an expansive library of genre movies. in 2017, they began to stream exclusive content.

Since then Shudder has become a powerhouse in the film festival circuit, buying distribution rights to movies, or just producing some of their own. Just like Netflix, they give a film a short theatrical run before adding it to their library exclusively for subscribers.

Late Night With the Devil is a great example. It was released theatrically on March 22 and will begin streaming on the platform starting April 19.

While not getting the same buzz as Late Night, Infested is a festival favorite and many have said if you suffer from arachnophobia, you might want to take heed before watching it.

Infested

According to the synopsis, our main character, Kalib is turning 30 and dealing with some family issues. “He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.”

The film will be available to watch on Shudder starting April 26.

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Part Concert, Part Horror Movie M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Trap’ Trailer Released

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In true Shyamalan form, he sets his film Trap inside a social situation where we aren’t sure what is going on. Hopefully, there is a twist at the end. Furthermore, we hope it’s better than the one in his divisive 2021 movie Old.

The trailer seemingly gives away a lot, but, as in the past, you can’t rely on his trailers because they are often red herrings and you are being gaslit to think a certain way. For instance, his movie Knock at the Cabin was completely different than what the trailer implied and if you hadn’t read the book on which the film is based it was still like going in blind.

The plot for Trap is being dubbed an “experience” and we aren’t quite sure what that means. If we were to guess based on the trailer, it’s a concert movie wrapped around a horror mystery. There are original songs performed by Saleka, who plays Lady Raven, a kind of Taylor Swift/Lady Gaga hybrid. They have even set up a Lady Raven website to further the illusion.

Here is the fresh trailer:

According to the synopsis, a father takes his daughter to one of Lady Raven’s jam-packed concerts, “where they realize they’re at the center of a dark and sinister event.”

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Trap stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills and Allison Pill. The film is produced by Ashwin Rajan, Marc Bienstock and M. Night Shyamalan. The executive producer is Steven Schneider.

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Woman Brings Corpse Into Bank To Sign Loan Papers

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Warning: This is a disturbing story.

You have to be pretty desperate for money to do what this Brazilian woman did at the bank to get a loan. She wheeled in a fresh corpse to endorse the contract and she seemingly thought the bank employees wouldn’t notice. They did.

This weird and disturbing story comes via ScreenGeek an entertainment digital publication. They write that a woman identified as Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes pushed a man she identified as her uncle into the bank pleading with him to sign loan papers for $3,400. 

If you’re squeamish or easily triggered, be aware that the video captured of the situation is disturbing. 

Latin America’s largest commercial network, TV Globo, reported on the crime, and according to ScreenGeek this is what Nunes says in Portuguese during the attempted transaction. 

“Uncle, are you paying attention? You must sign [the loan contract]. If you don’t sign, there’s no way, as I cannot sign on your behalf!”

She then adds: “Sign so you can spare me further headaches; I can’t bear it any longer.” 

At first we thought this might be a hoax, but according to Brazilian police, the uncle, 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga had passed away earlier that day.

 “She attempted to feign his signature for the loan. He entered the bank already deceased,” Police Chief Fábio Luiz said in an interview with TV Globo. “Our priority is to continue investigating to identify other family members and gather more information regarding this loan.”

If convicted Nunes could be facing jail time on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and desecration of a corpse.

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