Historical Realism, Suspense and Disappointing Excuse for a Plot

Rating: 2/10 (28 February 2016)

This was my wife's choice for our movie entertainment this weekend which was surprising since suspense has not been a traditional choice of hers if at all. I think that the historical realism as regards costume, setting and language was what baited her in. Those characteristics were available in abundance but they certainly didn't save the story. In fact the language was as much a detriment as a bonus. You end up trying to figure out what is being said more than following the plot which for this movie might be a good thing. Suspense was mostly characterized by spooky music with zero action to accompany it and depressing sets/scenery. You come away thinking that 17th century colonial life is gray, cloudy and dismal. The plot is characterized by a couple of gruesome actions that are barely related to each other and do nothing to build much of a story line. I felt like I was watching short stories from "Creepy" magazine that the writer tried to tie together but didn't quite succeed. The historicity disclaimer at the end, telling us that the movie was based on period records and dialogs, were poor attempts to document and pretentiously justify a shambling, depressing fantasy whose finale is a talking goat and chanting naked women floating around a bonfire (which are not DOCUMENTED as ever actually happening in any source I know of). When the credits came up my wife looked at me and said, "Really?". Apparently, to many, this bit of pretentiousness is meat to the large number of people who have jumped on the bandwagon of the even more pretentious Cannes Film reviewers that thought this was a good movie. I mean c'mon, did you really enjoy this dog?