Movie Review: A Dark Song

A Dark Song *** / *****

Directed by: Liam Gavin.

Written by: Liam Gavin.

Starring: Catherine Walker (Sophia Howard), Steve Oram (Joseph Solomon), Mark Huberman (Neil Hughes), Susan Loughnane (Victoria Howard).

 

Considering how often the Devil, or demons at least, are characters in horror films, it’s surprising just how few of those films take religion at all seriously. After all, you cannot have hell without heaven, so you cannot have Satan without God – and yet the extent of religious content in most horror movies hardly ever goes beyond an old priest walking around with a cross, and muttering things in Latin. To a certain extent, that makes Liam Gavin’s debut horror film, A Dark Song, somewhat different then – as it really does seem to take religion seriously. I’m not quite sure it works – particularly at the end – but I cannot help but admire the effort.

 

In the film, Catherine Walker plays Sophia Howard, a woman still grieving the death of her son – who apparently was murdered. She hires a creepy occultist, Joseph Solomon (Steve Oram), and empties her back account to set them up at a remote farm house in the English countryside. If she’ll do what he says, he will be able to make contact with her son on the other side – or at least he says so, The truth isn’t quite so simple, and their times takes a toll on both on them in ways they did not expect.

 

The movie is a slow burn – perhaps too slow. Almost the entire film takes place in this remote house in the Welsh countryside, with no one except Sophia and Joseph around. The rituals are going to take months to complete, and as the time move along, things get more intense – not because the other side and the activity is escalating, but because they don’t, and these two characters are already deeply flawed to begin with.

 

It really takes over an hour before the typical horror movie stuff – disembodied voices, noises, death – starts to really come to the forefront. Because the movie was shot quickly, and on a limited budget, director Gavin keeps everything effectively low-key for the vast majority of its runtime. These scenes are marvelously effective and creepy – and center on a great performance by Walker, who is brittle, bitter and angry, and on the edge of cracking. It’s only in the very closing scenes of the movie where Gavin’s real end game becomes apparent. I’m not entirely sure that ending works – at least not in quite the way Gavin wants it to, buts it’s also not a cheat.

 

It remains odd to me that more horror films don’t take religion seriously. They should, because doing so, could result in something more heady and dramatic – and scary. Not everything quite comes together in A Dark Song in the way it could – but the fact that Gain is willing to try to get there, and comes as close as he does, makes him someone to watch for.