Movie Review--The Wretched

"Make a salt circle around the tree and if I'm not back in 10 minutes, burn it."

--Ben Shaw, The Wretched

The Wretched twists the story of a predatory witch by appealing to an aspect of human phenomenology that rarely pertains to horror films in a thematic sense: memory.  It also has the bold distinction of clarifying early on what the nature of the villain is.  As is the case with 2016's The Witch, the witch of The Wretched is not hidden in order to tease epistemological themes about the ambiguity of onscreen experiences, but she is openly revealed from the start.  This makes the movie focus on the reactions of the main characters to what is presented as explicitly supernatural rather than have them spend most of the runtime trying to figure out how much evidence there is that they are in the presence of a supernatural entity.  In doing so, The Wretched sidesteps the more conventional approach of many other horror movies and makes itself more unique as a result.

Production Values

A cast that at least largely falls outside the spectrum of mainstream film actors and actresses (as well as a unique take on the witch's powers) takes the spotlight in The Wretched, qith two main characters receiving more attention than others: Mallory and Ben.  Piper Curda, whose credits listed online include roles in Disney projects, plays Mallory, a young girl who meets fellow protagonist Ben and becomes intertwined with the witch's malicious activities.  Ben himself is played by John-Paul Howard as a concerned youth both curious and cautious enough to investigate strange things happening next door without being led by impulsiveness or desperation (at least initially).  The two are usually at the best of their performances when acting together, and the supporting cast members do not show signs of trouble acting out their own roles.  The actress playing the witch often relies on physical mannerisms to express her characterization when she is not impersonating other characters.  Fortunately, she establishes her malevolence early on.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A young girl babysitting an even younger child finds a cannibalistic woman eating the child in a basement, after which she is locked inside by an adult man and seemingly consumed herself.  35 years later, a boy named Ben and his father happen to live next door to a witch who hid herself inside a deer carcass and was driven to the neighborhood when a local mom hit the animal while returning from a hiking trip with her son.  Ben notices strange activity the night after the neighboring mom came back, and the mom's baby is killed by the witch shortly after.  The witch haunts the mother's other, older child after taking her form.  This leads to her encountering and threatening Ben to the point of almost revealing her nature.  He is prompted to investigate a strange symbol on the wood by the next door entryway, discovering that a being associated with the emblem is supposed to feed on the "forgotten."

Intellectual Content

Like The Witch, The Wretched shows how the concept of a witch is not that of a safe, benevolent woman, but that of a malevolent lady imbued with unnatural abilities.  In the case of The Wretched's witch, these abilities include the power to make people forget victims who are very familiar to them: this witch specifically erases the memories of her victims from their family members.  Forgetfulness adds a non-traditional layer to the epistemological issues that come naturally to the horror genre.  Ben continually tells people (mostly unheeded) to look in the neighbor's cellar after his own dad is manipulated into forgetting him after his death.  Of course, as long as the witch did not manipulate objects in the external world or other characters' perceptions of them, merely looking in the cellar would have provided great evidence that Ben was not lying or having experiences that did not connect with those of his family and acquaintances, but not only would this hinder the story from unfolding as is, but it also reflects the general reluctance of the masses to intellectually explore anything that deviates from what others tell them.

Conclusion

The Wretched is the sum of many parts that are handled well even if only certain aspects stand out from the norm (not that novelty is a requirement for quality entertainment, as if storytelling is not already long past exhausting most wholly distinct plotline types anyway).  When it comes to those aspects that do stand out, though, a grand payoff is very cleverly set up, one where the absence of foreshadowing evidence is actually a instrumental in utilizing a certain plot twist.  The Wretched thus demonstrates how even very established setups can be used to tell stories which venture into new thematic and cinematic territory.  Even the comparatively barren movie landscape of 2020 did not stop the release of every movie!

Content:

 1.  Violence:  A witch is shown eating a girl in the opening scene, blood covering the child's neck.  She climbs out of a dead deer's body not long after.  She is shown using her powers to harm others again and again.

 2.  Profanity:  "Shit," "bitch," and "fucking" are used.

 3.  Nudity:  Ben is seen naked from behind when he steps out of a pool after a girl nonconsensually removes his underwear in the water on a dare.  Later, the witch is also shown naked from behind.

 4.  Sexuality:  The witch engages in sexual kissing and intercourse with a man after assuming the form of his wife--making the sex rape, even though there is nothing violent or explicit shown.