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Horror, Drama, Fantasy 98 min NR
Rotten Tomatoes81%IMDb
When their son starts acting strangely, a couple unwittingly allow dark and sinister forces into their home, awakening a long-dormant ancient evil rooted deep in the countryside.
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Contemplative, bleak, intimate and open-ended.
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Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Taste Buds's numbers.
There is something wonderfully matter-of-fact about the horror of *Starve Acre*. Richard returns to the place where his father abused him, starts digging for the remains of an ancient oak and discovers that the family folklore he might reasonably have preferred to leave buried was, inconveniently, not metaphorical. Daniel Kokotajlo's film understands one of folk horror's most useful principles: the past does not need your belief before it starts causing trouble. Richard and Juliette are already breaking apart following the death of their son Owen. Richard retreats into the earth, literally excavating the land and his childhood, while Juliette repeatedly stares across the fields towards something the film often refuses to show us. Those wide compositions matter. The landscape is visible in its entirety, yet whatever has taken hold of the family remains frustratingly difficult to locate. It makes the openness feel more oppressive, not less. Then there is the hare. Richard finds its remains near the buried roots and keeps them in a box, because apparently nobody in folk horror has yet established a sensible household policy concerning mysterious animal skeletons. As sinew and fungus b
Read the whole review on TMDBStarve Acre weaves together a familiar yet haunting British folk-horror narrative. In it, a man confronts dark, long-buried family secrets amidst the eerie, windswept expanse of the North Yorkshire Moors. The film’s remote setting adds an unsettling layer to the story, amplifying the isolation and creeping dread that define the genre. Morfydd Clark, known for her captivating performance in Saint Maud, once again brings quiet intensity to the screen. As a mother consumed by the devastation of grief, her portrayal is imbued with a nuanced vulnerability. Clark masterfully conveys a deep, simmering sorrow, holding the audience’s gaze as her character teeters between despair and unravelling. Even as the film spirals into a more fantastical—and arguably more chaotic—final act, Clark remains the emotional anchor, giving the film an emotional weight that lingers. On the other hand, Matt Smith takes a bolder approach, with an attempted Yorkshire accent that sometimes distracts from the atmosphere rather than enhances it. His brooding presence, marked by moments of intensity and introspection, is overemphasised by a camera that too often lingers in tight close-ups, almost intruding on the su
Read the whole review on TMDB"Richard" (Matt Smith), his wife "Jules" (Morfydd Clark) and their young son "Owen" (Arthur Shaw) have moved back to his late father's remote hill farm. Not long after they arrive the young, asthmatic, lad starts to hear a voice that seems to be compelling him to become erratic, even violent. Before his parents get to the bottom of this, though, there's a tragedy that upends their marriage and sees him spend an increasing amount of time doing what he like to do best - archeology. He is out in all weathers and one day discovers the skeleton of an animal. Meticulously boxing it up, he takes into his study to examine it further. Boy is he in for a surprise and what now ensues takes us all back into his unhappy childhood with a brutish and unloving father and lots of standing about in his underpants. It's starting to look like the folklore surrounding an ancient oak tree that might have been an entrance to the underworld and maybe even the legendary "Dandelion Jack" might be influencing their behaviour as their lives take a turn for the distinctly bizarre. It does fall into place a little at the end, but for the most part this all centres around a jigsaw puzzle of a story with too many
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