‘You’re a very stupid boy…’
There was a time when teenagers were an absolute staple of horror films. In the 80’s and ’90s, movies like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream defined the horror genre whilst simultaneously being positively bursting with teenage angst. Even Halloween was essentially a film about babysitters. As horror has become more sophisticated in recent years, teenage protagonists have become few and far between, while there have been some notable exceptions (Happy Death Day, It Follows), horror has mostly become the preserve of adults. The Wretched harks back to those halcyon days of teenage abandon, and while it doesn’t quite compete with the classics, it’s still a whole lot of fun.
When Ben (John-Paul Howard) goes to stay with his Dad (Jamison Jones) for the summer, life starts to unravel as Ben begins to suspect that his next door neighbour might be a witch. He enlists the help of local cool girl Mallory (Piper Curda) to uncover the truth.
Yep. Bloody witches. Not a common horror movie trope these days (Blair Witch aside), but a welcome one nevertheless. With Blumhouse Productions reviving The Invisible Man, perhaps the world is ready for some old fashioned creatures from black and white movies of yore. The witch in The Wretched is not like the Blair Witch. She doesn’t hide in the shadows, a mere presence in the darkness. Instead, she is just openly strolling through life, occasionally stopping to eat a child. The twist is that once the witch has consumed her chosen human, she also has the power to make everyone forget they existed in the first place. Always causing goddamn trouble these witches. First Macbeth, and now this.
The Wretched will win absolutely no points for originality. It’s pretty forgettable. The cast do a good job with an average script, with Howard and Curda both committed to their roles, but in the end, Bret and Drew Pierce’s film feels like little more than a fairground scare attraction. It’s a lot of fun while you’re on it, but you’re soon distracted by some candyfloss and the lure of a goldfish in a bag. One for the horror completists.