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| Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures |
Medieval horror dealing in witch-hunting
with nefarious witchfinders or inquisitors dabbling in elements of the
supernatural, psychological or purely political have enjoyed a resurgence of
interest within the last few years.
Between the recently released Neil Marshall witchfinder exploitation
horror flick The Reckoning to the far artier and grandiose The Green
Knight, the setting and elements of magical realism, fantasy and/or
leanings towards horror have come back into the forefront of modern
cinema.
Mixing historical period drama
with the gothic horror tale through a contemporary lens, the medieval
fantasy-horror film is no doubt back. Judging
from the successes of shows such as Game of Thrones as well as renewed
interest in the cult return of Ken Russell’s seminal The Devils, that’s
unlikely to change for some time.
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| Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures |
Which brings us to the microbudget medieval
witchfinder/inquisition horror flick The Appearance, a film many have
compared to Jean-Jacques Annaud’s The Name of the Rose for its kindred
premise of an inquisitor investigating a series of serial murders possibly
connected to the occult but in the end winds up being closer to Juan López Moctezuma’s Alucarda
than anything.
Written and directed
by newcomer Kurt Knight, two years after his zombie horror debut We All Fall
Down, the film stars Jake Stormeon as Mateho the Inquisitor who is called
upon an abbey to investigate the imprisonment of a young woman named Isabel
(Baylee Self) by local monks claiming she is a witch inflicting the town with
the plague.
With his trusty sidekick
Johnny (Game of Thrones stalwart Kristian Nairn), the two set out to provide
the girl with a fair trial and investigation, much to the behest of the monks
who demand immediate execution no questions asked. Mateho, skeptical and of sound rationale, isn’t
so quick to buy into the monks and townsfolk’s superstitions and sees an ordinary
woman, like so many before her, being victimized by a corrupt system. But when the strange paranormal occurrences
and mysterious deaths begin to intensify anyway with many of the monks meeting
grisly ends one by one, they start to redirect their sights on the arrival of
their new unwanted, unwelcome inquisitor.
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| Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures |
Largely set within brick-and-mortar
prison walls and iron bars with hooded cloaked figures lurking in the shadows with
the halls lit by candlelight, the film plays almost like a blueprint for what Neil
Marshall would do with The Reckoning and is mostly a sobering crime
scene investigation piece. But then it
begins to shifts gears towards a survival/horror thriller with all literal Hell
breaking loose within the enclosed cabal and prison walls, leaving even the
film’s worldly down-to-Earth hero wondering just who or what is this young
woman he’s been called upon to give a just and fair handshake with the law.
An initially tense little medieval
witch-hunting number which makes you trade about your alliances with the
characters back and forth many times over throughout the movie, The
Appearance isn’t the most frightening or best example of the genre but on
its terms still manages to serve up an engaging slice of low budget period
horror. Visually speaking the film is
handsomely lensed in 4K digital by We All Fall Down and Reed cinematographer
Benjamin Allred, capturing the dark candlelit interiors walls of the prison
beautifully and Snatchers composer Christopher Doucet serves up a moody
and unsettling score for the film.
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| Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures |
Reliant on less than stellar CGI
effects at times, most of the film is carried by the two leads Jake Stormeon and
Baylee Self, with Stormeon’s bearded just-and-fair inquisitor engaged in
impassioned exchanges with Self’s imprisoned “witch”, trying to get to the
bottom of how to prove her innocence despite the mounting death numbers. Initially dialogue and set driven, eventually
the film becomes something of a phantasmagorical fireworks-show though I don’t
dare tell how that transpires. For some,
The Appearance will be a forgettable misfire but in the age of ongoing next
to no-budget horror films medieval and contemporary in setting, it represents
another welcome addition to the ever-growing popularity of period horror in the
digital age.
--Andrew Kotwicki
