31 Nights of Halloween Horror = The Wretched

The Wretched

95 mins.

Dir. The Pierce Brothers

2019/USA

We are over half through the month and we have watched stuff with genies, crocodiles, killer kids, infected people, vampires, werewolves, zombies, witches, witches and tonight, more witches, as we take a look at The Wretched.

35 years ago, a girl enters a house to babysit, she doesn't find anyone home and wanders down into the basement.  There she finds the mother feasting on the daughter, she turns to run back up the stairs and the father closes the door on her.  On the back of the door is a triangle type symbol carved in.  Cut to 5 days ago.  Not to sure what purpose the whole prologue serves other to let us know this child eating witch creature has been around for at least 35 years and presumably much longer.

Anyway, cut to 5 days ago, which is really all that matters for our story.  Ben is a 17-year-old  going to spend the summer with his dad who lives in some remote place except for one other house next door and works as harbor master at the local marina, where Ben has a summer job.  One day, Ben's neighbors (the wife and younger son) are out in the woods and hit.a deer on the way home.  She straps it to the hood of her car to bring back and gut, because as she  says, "it's good meat."   She slices the deer open, stinky guts fall out and that's it.  She just leaves it there and calls it a day.  That night something crawls out of the deer and ultimately takes over the mother, who in turn snatches her baby and carries it off to the woods in the middle of the night.  Ben witnesses all this and becomes Charlie Brewster from Fright Night, keeping an eye on neighbors.

As we and Ben find out, essentially this witch steals children to feast on in her underground lair and makes the parents forget they ever had children.  Ultimately this is a cool practical effects monster movie mixed in with Ben's coming of age story trying to cope with his parent's divorce.  While to your average viewer this may come across as a good film, maybe even with a few scares, to your seasoned horror expert there is a certain something lacking here that makes this just an average film.  Worth a watch, but nothing too memorable.  Maybe too much unnecessary teen angst, maybe too much Charlie Brewster, maybe not enough creepy witch.  There is some element missing here to bring this movie to the next level.  Overall though, it's not a bad movie, it is just an ok flick you were wishing was better.