****
Directed by J.P. Davidson.
Starring Craig Russell, Sarah Bowden, Ollie McFarlane.
Horror, UK, 89 Minutes.
Reviewed as part of Tubi FrightFest Halloween 2026.
Working as both a horror story and a character drama, writer and director J.P. Davidson’s latest film is an effective slice of low budget British horror. Craig Russell, fast becoming the most reliable man in the British low-budget horror scene, plays Niall, just released from prison for the murder of his mother, a heinous crime that he claims he is innocent of. Immediately arousing suspicion and hostility when he moves into his cabin deep into the woods, resplendent with damp stains and peeling wallpaper that spread further across the screen as the film creeps on, Niall also has to deal with a family of drug addicted squatters who are reluctant to move on.
While this is bad enough, Niall’s past actions keep coming back to haunt him in various ways. How much of this is actually happening in his own head or not is up to debate but clues such as the aged books that he discovers in his new home detailing all manner of witchery and the like seem to point somewhere definitively supernatural.
Davidson does a good job of turning the deep Cornish forest into a hostile landscape, populated by cider swilling, crack smoking, rifle toting psychopaths who lay claim to the land around them by virtue of just being there for so long. This, coupled with the folk horror aspects where a mysterious entity moves through and blends in with the trees lend the film an impressively oppressive atmosphere. Also of note is the excellent design work of the entity that stalks Niall at night, nicely designed by Neill Gorton, who also provides some satisfyingly bloody and grisly effects of realistic violence of a more recognisable and immediate nature.
At eighty nine minutes, the film tries to pack a lot into its running time, ensuring the pacing never flags, but feeling just a tad rushed with squeezing all of its revelations in the final stretch onto the screen. Nevertheless, this is a dark treat that does a fine job of melding social realism and English folk horror together with real skill and confidence.
Iain MacLeod