This film is not for every horror fan. Not only is a slow burn with practically only two characters, but it also relies heavily on the power of imagination. If you seek jump scares or gore, stay away.

The real horror is inside the protagonist Sophia, brilliantly played by Catherine Walker. The horrible feelings that she hides inside, including the crave for revenge and the emptiness, are nothing compared with the horror that would be finding nothing that could heal her hounds after putting so much hope in this last chance for healing.

The house used for the ritual is very well filmed. You are always guessing what is happening across the room or down the corridor. The real events…

A Quick Note On Magick

Magick is real. Magick always works. It doesn't always work the way you want it to and not always on the timeline you might have had in mind. It always costs and what it costs is proportionate and symmetrical to the desired. What is taken is taken forever or for a little while or for a very very long time and if it is returned it comes back as something else other than what it was when it was taken and it might not be recognizable any more as what has gone. Part of the problem is that we do not truly know what we are and cannot see and grasp the whole of what…

This is NOT a horror film for everyone, and there are two reasons why. First of all, it's definitely a slow-burning movie where the focus is on the situation itself rather than a chain of events. Second, A Dark Song really approaches the ritual with a lot of attention – it's not a glamorous portrayal of witchcraft, it's drawn out, it's unsettling, it's dirty, it goes for realism, and it doesn't yield immediate obvious results. If you have an issue with either of those – I don't think this film is for you.

That being said, I really enjoyed A Dark Song, particularly because of how different it was from other supernatural films based around rituals. It's a beautifully shot,…

There have been some really wonderful debut horror films in the last few years, and A Dark Song falls into that lot, by way of Irish writer/director Liam Gavin. Most notably he showcases a penchant for calculation in both his filming and his writing, where every scene is staged carefully to elicit a certain feeling or perspective, and the incredibly detailed rituals and processes of the plot are laid out painful detail. Together, it creates a film that establishes the world that it lives in, the rules and the methods, and carefully works within its own boundaries and guidelines, no matter how fantastical they grow to become.

The first thing I noticed out the gate is that the film is…

“I don’t do forgiveness.”

Grieving 30-something mother Sophia (Catherine Walker) hires occult expert Joseph (Steve Oram) to undertake a series of rituals that will allow her to speak to her dead seven-year-old son. Joseph is slobbish and rude and doesn’t care too much for the upper-middle-class Sophia.

What follows is an intense two-hander that takes place in a large, remote country house. Is Joseph for real? Will Sophia persist with the gruelling, likely months-long process of opening the world up to an 'angel' that supposedly can grant her a special favour?

A Dark Song could almost be, on a very superficial level, something that Blumhouse might release, but only in terms of the general aesthetics. Here, there are no jump…