Starve Acre Stars Matt Smith, Morfydd Clark, and Gobs of Folk-Horror Gloom

Grief is ne'er a tidy emotion, but successful Starve Acre, Richard (Matt Smith) and Juliette (Morfydd Clark) find the process further analyzable by their surroundings. Their farmhouse—ground zero for Richard’s unhappy childhood—is perched adjacent to a tract steeped successful sinister section folklore, and it’s go wide the legends of the past haven’t yet finished weaving caller tales.

Folk horror is simply a consistently fashionable genre with bully reason, and Starve Acre makes fantabulous usage of immoderate of its astir reliable tropes. Though Richard grew up successful the agrarian country wherever he’s present surviving with Juliette, the household has lone precocious moved from a adjacent city. There’s already immoderate hostility successful the matrimony erstwhile a calamity strikes; they drift isolated adjacent much portion coping with their atrocious caller reality. She has her sympathetic sister, Harrie (Erin Richards) arsenic support, and helium has his passionateness for archaeology, with a treasure trove of artifacts lurking conscionable beyond his beforehand door. Richard’s investigations into the ungraded parallel his excavations into his ain past, particularly the journals of his precocious father—an abusive antheral with a akin involvement successful history, driven by a distressing obsession with the occult.

Image: Brainstorm Media

Starve Acre’s fascination with past rituals—at 1 constituent we larn locals person agelong believed a literal “a pagan entranceway to the tone world” is successful their midst—and its 1970s mounting infuse its ambiance with Wicker Man vibes. But portion that folk-horror classical is mostly focused connected an outsider fumbling done a civilization helium doesn’t understand, Starve Acre posits Richard and Juliette arsenic radical who’re becoming absorbed into a bequest successful a mode that’s some malevolent and nurturing. You fearfulness for them… until you statesman to fearfulness them.

Director Daniel Kokotaljo, who besides adapted the screenplay from acclaimed fearfulness writer Andrew Michael Hurley’s 2019 book, enhances Starve Acre‘s deep-rooted quality themes with gorgeous cinematography by Adam Scarth, and builds hostility with Matthew Herbert’s score, which veers eerily betwixt homespun and menacing.

But the biggest gully for Starve Acre is its 2 leads: Matt Smith (Doctor Who) is presently ripping his mode done play 2 of HBO’s House of the Dragon arsenic the volatile Daemon Targaryen; Morfydd Clark, meanwhile, volition soon instrumentality arsenic Galadriel successful play 2 of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. That this hardly feels similar stunt casting is simply a testament to some their skills arsenic performers.

Starve Acre opens successful theaters and arrives connected request July 26.

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