The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw: Odd indie Canadian witch movie has plenty of dark atmosphere
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B
We take you back to a time when, if your crops were failing and a woman farmer a few miles away had consistent harvests, you wouldn’t go to her for seeding and planting tips. You’d simply assume she’s a witch and act accordingly.
In the Canadian witchcraft drama The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw, that time is ostensibly the 1970s. Writer-director Thomas Robert Lee’s oddly anachronistic tale takes place in a socially isolated village of Irish expats. Actually, pretty much everything is socially isolated. If it wasn’t for some ‘splaining in a wordy crawl at the beginning of the movie, you’d have no idea it doesn’t take place in the 18th or 19th Century.
Jessica Reynolds plays the title character, a young woman connecting with the dark side of her powers.
(The town, we’re told, is indeed frozen in time, a self-isolated community that fled Ireland for religious reasons in the 1870s).
That narrative head-scratcher isn’t a deal-breaker, though. Reminiscent of the mordant mood of Robert Eggers’ acclaimed The Witch (if not quite at that level of artistry), this tale of witchy suspicion lays its cards on the table early and offers plenty of dark atmosphere and, eventually, violent magic.
Agatha Earnshaw (Catherine Walker) has been getting the skunk-eye from the villagers since the ‘50s, when she appeared impervious to a plague. She is routinely accosted when in town for supplies, more so since starvation started to become a factor with the locals and children began dying.
It’s revealed early that Agatha really is a member of a coven, though she doesn’t appear to be all that bad of a witch (a little uncaring for the suffering around her, but more afraid than anything). But the title character, her daughter Audrey (Jessica Reynolds) is another matter.
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Kept secret from the townsfolk all these years, Audrey has become sullen from a lifetime of being hidden in closets and under burlap in the wagon when taken to town, and having borne witness to the treatment of her mother.
There are subplots and connected characters to dwell on – a minister (Sean McGinley), a bereaved family man (Jared Abrahamson) who falls prey to a spell, a family murder, plagues, boils and maybe even locusts. If you’re any kind of Canadian, you’ll appreciate Don McKellar in full Amish-like beard playing a particularly tortured soul.
But the main dynamic is comeuppance for the town that persecuted a young witch’s mother.
That seems pretty direct, but The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw isn’t as focused in its witchy-revenge as is a straight ahead scare-fest like, say, The Craft.
Still, it burns, however slowly, with eye-catching cinematography from Nick Thomas. And Reynolds conveys an icy, simmering anger as a young, vengeful woman working the dark side of magic to transgressive levels.
Click HERE to see Bonnie Laufer’s interview with The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw star Jessica Reynolds.
The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw. Written and directed by Thomas Robert Lee. Starring Jessica Reynolds, Catherine Walker and Jared Abrahamson. In theatres across Canada, Friday, October 8. VOD release, Wednesday, October 20.