Rating: 3.5/5
Oh My Horror 2025 | 33/52 | Witches
For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. — Psalm 91
Vengeance is a lazy form of grief. — Nicole Kidman
Sophia drives through the desolate Welsh countryside, arriving at an isolated house. With few questions and no requests, she rents the space for a year. She pays the broker in cash, with an additional sum added for his silence. She then drives to the train station to pick up Joseph Solomon—not her first choice, as he is quite disagreeable, but the one who agreed to help her. Sophia has already started purifying herself, following the dietary and ritualistic restrictions to prepare for the rite.
She shows Joseph the rite, coming from the Abramelin. She tells Joseph that she “loves someone, and they don’t love her anymore.” Joseph refuses, demanding his pay so he can go back to London. Sophia, a full-blown moron, waits until they get back to the train station to tell him that her child died, and it’s her fault. The rite is to speak to her son again. Joseph agrees, but has to detox from his alcohol abuse before they can begin. He hides away an emergency bottle, because of course he does.
Before they can begin, Sophia’s younger sister, Victoria, tracks her down. Victoria asks about Sophia’s stint in the psychiatric hospital and whether Joseph knows. Victoria worries that what she’s doing is against God. But Sophia doesn’t care. She is going to go through with it. The film follows the preparation and execution of the months-long ritual while the two seal themselves away in the house.
The film, like many horror films, is a meditation on grief. This one is, perhaps, one of the most literal, as the ritual has many stages that repeat and loop onto each other. Even when there are signs that it might be working, Sophia’s faith in the process falters. If they try to stop the ritual at any point, they will be stuck in the house for eternity. If you do not process your grief, you will always carry it with you.
When will we know when it's started? How do we know that it's working?
The film is a slow-burning, focusing on each aspect of the ritual, their failures and successes. We are pulled into Sophia’s wavering faith that something, anything, is happening. Joseph seems to know how to handle each step, but as he is a recovering alcoholic and full of anger, it’s hard to trust him.
Joseph also seems to be someone haunted by grief. He has seen too much, and besides the money he gets from Sophia, he has his motivations for performing the ritual. But he knows, or at least strongly believes, that it works — that he has the secret mechanisms of the universe at his fingertips. They just happen to be dark, painful, and unbearably difficult.
I wouldn’t go into this movie looking for spooks and scares. It’s almost unfair to put this in the horror genre, even though there are plenty of horror moments throughout. Also, several people dislike the ending. I understand why, but I believe it’s because they brought the wrong expectations.
Overall, the filmmaking is sharp, especially for a first film. Not something I plan to revisit anytime soon, but one I recommend for folks who like a strong emotional core to their genre flicks.