Starve Acre review: "Morfydd Clark and Matt Smith headline a chilling and unnerving horror movie"

GamesRadar+ VerdictA chilling and unnerving retro spine-tingler, with an animatronic hare so lifelike it deserves its own credit. ‘Rupert Leveret’, anyone? GamesRadar+ Verdict GamesRadar+ Verdict A chilling and unnerving retro spine-tingler, with an animatronic hare so lifelike it deserves its own credit. ‘Rupert Leveret’, anyone? A chilling and unnerving retro spine-tingler, with an animatronic hare so lifelike it deserves its own credit. ‘Rupert Leveret’, anyone? Why you can trust GamesRadar+Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you.Find out more about our reviews policy. Why you can trust GamesRadar+Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you.Find out more about our reviews policy. “I don’t really know what’s happening anymore” cries an anguished Matt Smith an hour or so into Starve Acre. And indeed, such is the fug of indistinct menace and metaphysical mystery in Daniel Kokotajlo’s follow-up to 2017’s Apostasy that your immediate response to his woeful declaration may be to nod instinctively in agreement. Tapping into the same rich vein of British folk horror the likes of 2015’sThe Witchand 2022’s Enys Men mined so productively, Starve Acre roots its dread in a gloomy past that is mundane, real and tangible. A radio news bulletin conveys bleak warnings of impending industrial action, while the buckled headset Owen is made to suffer as he undergoes an EEG has the vintage authenticity of a medieval torture device. The chunky patterned knitwear Juliette and her interfering sibling Harrie (Erin Richards) favor has the same aura of musty specificity, something director of photography Adam Scarth augments with visuals that look like they have been dunked in a colour-inhibiting taupe. The upshot of this is that when strange things happen they seem to emerge elementally from the ether, like shadows granted corporeal form or waking dreams made palpable. (Image credit: Access Entertainment/BBC Film/BFI) Clark has the more arduous task, encumbered as Juliette is with a crushing albatross of grief following a crippling bereavement. Over the course of the film, though, she undergoes her own kind of rebirth, albeit one that comes with a zeal not that dissimilar from the religious devotion of Apostasy’s Jehovah’s Witnesses. Having that film’s Robert Emms play Richard’s academic friend provides additional connective tissue with Kokotajlo’s debut. A brief excerpt of a youthful Donald Sutherland in 1964’s Hamlet at Elsinore, meanwhile, can’t help but summon memories ofDon’t Look Now, as does a later interlude that sees Smith and Clark reconnecting through a bout of passionate, wound-healing lovemaking. “You’ve hit the jackpot!” exults Emms’ character Steven after Richard unearths the stump of an ancient oak tree with huge pagan significance. Audiences may feel similar elation at Kokotajlo’s ongoing maturation into one of our most composed and rigorous storytellers. Starve Acre is released in UK cinemas on September 6. For more chillers coming your way, check out our guide toupcoming horror movies. 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