With top-billing from Mena Suvari, The Accursed is a fairly nuts-and-bolts haunted house-cum-possession film, bolstered by some moody cinematography and inventive direction from Kevin Lewis. Beginning with what appears to be your bog standard, fairy tale-esque dark deal with a witch in the woods (the wonderfully croaky Meg Foster), the film quickly flips the script, setting the tone for what’s to come. For the most part, The Accursed is pretty predictable, but some nasty twists and turns along the way spice up what otherwise would have been quite run-of-the-mill.
The film’s primary Screen Queen is jobless nurse Elly (Sarah Grey), who we find mopily going through her recently deceased mother’s belongings in – of course – a massive and creaky-at-the-wrong-time-of-night 1950s mini-mansion. She’s feeling abandonment guilt, worried that her not being there for her mum led to her death, which her best friend Beth (Sarah Dumont) suspects motivates Elly to take a job caring for the bedridden Ms. Ambrose… who happens to also be the witch from the start. Hmm! Suvari plays Ms. Ambrose’s caretaker Alma, who treats the two girls with nothing but icy contempt and insists Elly lives in the house alone. HMM!
From there, Elly is terrorised by horrors from her past and present – ignoring threats that more bad things will happen from both inner and outer adversaries if she doesn’t – culminating in a bloody and fiery climax with clear sequel potential.
Other than its swampy eeriness, The Accursed does have some genuine moments of stomach-turning ghoulishness and appropriate levels of Exorcist bodily fluid spewing. Suvari does a good job of incrementally ramping up the crazy; Dumont livens up what is usually a dull sidekick role in these sorts of things while Alexis Knapp and her mute child of woe amuse in a diverting and frankly bizarre True Blood meets Van Helsing part.
Less successful – other than its predictability and the ineptitude the plot has to give to Elly as a nurse to work – is The Accursed’s tone. While it seems to take itself quite seriously, there’s a strong undercurrent of horror hamminess, calling back to the oeuvre of Sam Raimi (Drag Me To Hell in particular) or James Wan (Malignant) occasionally rising to the surface. Case in point: one scene in which a ghostly hag dangles from a tree, lobbing rotten apples and screaming at a terrified Elly, had me in stitches, which I’d consider a strength if I were sure that was the intended reaction. Whatever the case, it’s likely to be a marmite early Halloween watch for most audiences – though I’d personally give the film the benefit of the doubt and hope for an even camper follow-up.
Dir. Kevin Lewis (97 mins)
The Accursed is out Fri 14 Oct
words HANNAH COLLINS