- Directed by Kate Dolan
- Written by Kate Dolan
- Stars Hazel Doupe, Carolyn Bracken, Jordanne Jones
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoNbm72YLqA
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This starts out with a shocking scene, then goes to a slow burn leaving us wondering what’s going on. It gets there nicely eventually. It’s skillfully written and directed, and it’s overall very entertaining.
Synopsis
A baby in a carriage sits in the middle of the road. A woman comes out and pushes it into the woods. The woman digs a hole as she reads a witchy-looking book. She sets some brush on fire and cooks the baby in the center of a ring of fire. Credits roll.
We see the same woman, Ms Devlin, stuck in bed with a sore foot, and her granddaughter Char is taking care of her. Char’s mother is there too, but she seems to have some kind of emotional problem. “Just tired,” she says. Mom zones out on the way to school and almost hits a horse in the road. “I can’t do this anymore,” she says. It looks like Mom has severe depression.
We see that Char is very talented and has skipped ahead a year in class, so she has no friends. On the way home from school, she spots Mom’s car abandoned in a field.
The police talk to Grandma and Uncle Aaron about the disappearance. Grandma acknowledges that her daughter has “down” times, and suggests that she may have gone missing before. Char tells Aaron about what her mother told her that morning. Some kids in the neighborhood bully Char and burn the photo she had of her mother.
That night, Grandma gives Char a little “protection charm.” We get a flashback to Char and her mother carving pumpkins for Halloween years ago. That night, she dreams that her mother is dead. Later that night, her mother, Angela, comes home.
Aaron stops by the next day with drugs for the mother to keep her normal. He forgot the Lithium, and Char volunteers to go pick it up for him. One bully from yesterday, Suzanne, apologizes for what she did. Grandma Devlin tells Char she has “to go see a friend about your mother.”
Char finds her mother in the kitchen cooking and dancing the next day— the medicine must be working. Grandma spills the food all over the floor but scoops most of it up back in the pan. Aaron shows up with french fries. It’s clear that Angela and Grandma don’t get along well. Angela wants her and Char to go away for the weekend, but Aaron forbids it.
That night, Char watches Angela stick her whole arm down her throat, which makes her vomit.
The next morning, we see that Angela has ground up a bunch of her medication and put it in Aaron’s tea. Then she goes out for a walk. Angela says that she can’t tell Char where she went when she disappeared— not yet, anyway. Mom jumps on the freezing cold river, and Char thinks she’s committing suicide, but no, it’s just a crazy stunt. When they get home, Aaron is having seizures from being poisoned.
Mom has a “dancing fit” and stomps around until she breaks her ankle. She howls and roars at Char, which terrifies the girl. Char goes on a field trip with school to a museum where the tour guide talks all about local Irish witchcraft legends. School bully Kelly tells Char that she heard that her family tried to burn Char in a fire when she was little.
The doctor tells Ms. Devlin that Aaron had a Lithium overdose, and she says that Aaron doesn’t take Lithium. She visits him in the hospital and burns one of those protection charms that she makes. After school, Char’s only friend Suzanne shows her how to smoke pot. They both open up about their weird families.
Char brings Suzaane home for dinner, and Grandma says she used to know Suzanne’s mother, but she doesn’t want her there for dinner. Suzanne sees something she shouldn’t and runs away in fear.
Grandma finally has to spill the beans about the family secrets. One night, Angela took her out for a walk in the buggy and came home without the baby; she couldn’t remember where she’d been. Then the baby did show up, except it wasn’t Char; it was a changeling. The ritual we saw in the pre-credits was grandma doing a spell. Apparently if you kill the changeling, the original will return. She says the spirits are vengeful and have come back for her. Her mother isn’t really her mother, it’s something that’s come back for Char. “If we don’t do something, we’ll never get your mother back.”
Grandma unlocks the bedroom door where Angela is locked in. Angela’s tied to a bed and gagged. Char, not convinced that Grandma isn’t nuts, locks Grandma out and unties Angela. Char sees something awful in the mirror— maybe Grandma was right. Angela pushes Grandma down the stairs. Grandma’s ghost whispers, “burn it” to Char.
The school is going to have a bonfire tonight for Halloween. Char comes downstairs in the morning to find Granny is dead. Suzanne tells Char to never go back. We see that Angela’s literally starting to fall apart.
The mean girls lure Angela behind the school where the bonfire is set up. Except Suzanne’s not there, the bullies are waiting for her. Kelly and the others shut Char up inside the wooden thing and douse it with gasoline. Angela shows up looking pretty horrifying and talks to Char through the wooden pallets. The creature oozes her way in, and they embrace. Suzanne tosses a lighter and spray can in, and Char sets the creature on fire before escaping.
The police talk to Aaron in the hospital; they didn’t find a body, nor have they seen Angela. Char will probably wind up in an orphanage. Suddenly, Angela comes to the door. Is this the real one or another changeling?
Commentary
We know from the very first scene that there’s witchcraft or something similar going on, but then we get into the family drama for a long time and that goes onto the back burner. It spends a lot more time dealing with depression and mental illness than the witchcraft bits, but it’s well done.