I have to admit I’m a sucker for a good movie trailer. I can get as excited as kid on sugar with the right ones, so when i got a gander of A Dark Song a few months ago I was well up for it. I’d heard nothing but good things about Liam Gavin’s feature film first so i was actually gleeful at the prospect of getting to finally see the finished product this past weekend.
A Dark Song opens with a sullen Sophia (Catherine Walker) giving a country house in Wales a good going through. We learn in short order that she has suffered the traumatic loss of her son and it appears as though she is using the house as a respite to heal and be alone. That is until we see Sophia fetching one Mr. Joseph Solomon (Steve Oram) from the train station. It is from there we learn that Joseph and Sophia are about to embark on a dark journey that will hopefully lead to closure for the both of them.
Fair warning. A Dark Song is a slow slow burn of a film. There aren’t any jump scares to be had and the director chose to focus on performance and atmosphere rather than CGI or knocking you about the head with the obvious. The slowness however is to the film’s benefit. Given its subject matter it could have turned schlocky at a moments notice. But supreme performances from the leads and the building of some serious dread all add up to make an often times spooky horror film debut. It is definitely worth the find and worth the watch. So go on then. Get to watching.
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