The Haunting of Pendle Hill (2022)
Slow burn yarn about a daughter searching for her father who mysteriously went missing in the forests (?) around Pendle Hill. Forests supposedly haunted by the old witch Demdike and her granddaughter Jennet.
Nicely atmospheric, especially for a low budget production, with mostly decent acting and in flashbacks good use of olde-world English ala Robert Eggers The Witch. The film sort of tells a jumbled story of the peddler John Law who was cursed by Alizon Device and subsequently died. The death was followed up by local Justice of the Peace, Roger Nowell.
So basically the film tells two stories. One set in 1612 and one in the modern day that cleverly interweave at the finale. The ghostly Demdike is in a way reminiscent of Black Phillip in the aforementioned The Witch in that she utters creepy sentences to those around trying to lure them to their deaths, whilst Alizon is seen several times in the woods wearing a weird cat mask.
Most disappointing was the fact that the film makers never set foot in Lancashire to film this thing. It looks more like somewhere in Ireland, certainly never seen Pendle. Stock footage of mountains and huge forests don't help matters either. In fact there's not one single shot of the real Pendle Hill.
Even though i got something out of this - a local historical thing- i'm not sure i'd recommend it. The pace really is snail like and for those without an interest in the subject there's nothing here that hasn't been in better films.
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