“Less is more” is always the old adage that you hear when it comes to storytelling, and it especially applies to telling a horror story. You can show all the ghosts, ghouls, and goblins you want, but at the end of the day, the best weapon you have to use against an audience is their own imagination. There’s always a dark presence lurking just around a corner, but no matter what kind of monster the filmmakers have cooked up, it will never stack up to whatever demonic vision the viewers have concocted in their own minds. Director Bryan Bertino is a master of using “less” to give the audience more scares, and his previous films, The Strangers and The Monster take a minimalist approach to horror, using the heavy atmosphere to create suspense while letting the audience’s mind run wild over what’s happening in the shadowy spaces between the characters.
The Dark and The Wicked continues this approach, setting most of the action on a secluded family farm where a brother and sister help their elderly mother care for their dying father who may or may not be under attack from a demonic force. A heavy, oppressive atmosphere is established from the very first shot, and we as the audience know from the get-go that there’s a dark “something” going on at this farm. Things only get stranger, and more terrifying for our characters as the film goes on, and we’re treated to quite a few well-done and well-timed scares along the way. Much like The Strangers, the scares in this film aren’t of the jump-scare variety but are often the result of slow build-up with a brief but disturbing pay off.
As well done as the scares and atmosphere in this film are, I still felt like this film was missing something that kept me from truly loving it. While the characters in The Dark and the Wicked are all likable enough, they really are just nothing more than just vehicles to move from one scare to another. I could have used a little more time to get to know these people and their relationships with each other. There are several points throughout the film where a new character will just pop in and experience something horrible but since we as an audience have no emotional investment in that person we feel very little when something bad happens to them.
This is a film full of wonderful build-up, but I could have used a little more as far as the pay-off was concerned. The Dark and The Wicked feels like a roller coaster where all of the work was put into building the giant hill that the cart goes up and not as much with the drop after. Horror films can get away without explaining things more than most films, but it’s a tight-rope walk. Over-explain something and that mysterious thing lurking in the shadows loses what makes it scary, but underexplain and often times your story may feel anti-climatic or underdeveloped. Unfortunately, The Dark and the Wicked feels like the latter when the credits roll, with most of the thought and effort of the filmmakers going into crafting atmosphere and scares but not the “why” and “how” of it all. So in the end, The Dark and the Wicked felt like a meal that had a beautiful presentation but wasn’t very filling. It’s a film that uses “less” to its advantage by creating mood and a feeling of dread, but I could have appreciated a “little more” with things like story and character. Impressive craft is on display by the filmmaker, and haunting visuals, atmosphere, and suspense make up for a bare-bones script that was more concerned with the journey than the destination.
James Reinhardt