Something Wicked Lives Next Door: "The Wretched" a fun, vicious melding of witchy horror and teen melodrama

The Wretched (2020)

95 min.

Release Date: May 1, 2020 (Digital & On Demand)

Horror indie “The Wretched” promises wickedly good things to come for writer-director brothers Brett Pierce and Drew T. Pierce (2011’s “Deadheads”). Trading in a serial killer or vampire next door for a children-eating, skin-snatching witch next door, the film is a cool blend of a familiar coming-of-age touchstone—“the summer that changed everything”—and age-old folkloric curses in a polished package with Amblin adventure vibes. It’s like 2013’s “The Way Way Back” brewed with 1987’s “Fright Night” (or its 2011 remake of the same name) and 1990’s William Friedkin-directed “The Guardian.” Vicious but not without a sense of frightful fun, “The Wretched” is worth a look for horror connoisseurs.

For the summer before his parents make their divorce official, teenager Ben (John-Paul Howard) is sent to stay with his father, Liam (Jamison Jones), and work for him at the port town’s local marina. Next door lives a family—rocker mother Abbie (Zarah Mahler), husband Ty (Kevin Bigley), son Dillon (Blane Crockarell), and infant daughter—and once Ben strikes up a little-brother friendship with Dillon, things begin to change. Dillon (and the baby) both go missing, and when Ben asks Ty about Dillon, Ty admits to he and Abbie not having any children. Because of the film’s opening 35-years-ago prologue involving a babysitter, her charge having the life sucked out of her, and a witchy symbol carved into a door, perhaps an ancient witch has taken over the skin of Abbie to lure children to her tree lair and feast on them.

Under the surface of a story about a witch playing musical chairs with different human skins, “The Wretched” does hold some weight by tapping into how children can sometimes be or feel forgotten during the end of a marriage. The most intriguing facet of the witch is her ability to make people forget about their own children so she can feast on the forgotten. And yet, when the film throws in a curveball in direct correlation with the witch’s tricky abilities, it’s a total cheat that doesn’t track, despite the filmmakers dropping clues that match up and running through what was really going on. Though tension is built around Ben having to deal with Dad dating marina employee Sara (Azie Tesfai), the script might have been better off developing more of Ben and Liam’s issues rather than drag out Ben’s frequent run-ins with a preppy jerk (Richard Ellis) who doesn’t end up mattering at all.

The Pierce brothers have really taken care in the look and sense of foreboding of “The Wretched,” but their script could have been refined in spots, save for the fiendishly clever final scene. John-Paul Howard makes Ben a likable-enough protagonist, while Piper Curda is much more engaging as Ben’s co-worker and possible love interest Mallory. Within the filmmakers’ moody visual style, there are effectively ghastly body-horror moments and ample eerie imagery, like the first sight of the wretched hag crawling out of a deer carcass or the witch in Abbie’s body standing outside the screen door of Ben’s house in a flowery white dress that looks more like splashes of blood. Makeup effects supervisor Erik Porn’s make-up and practical effects have a tangibility that’s often missed in the genre, and the design of the crone herself is appropriately wretched-looking. It remains a solid genre effort, as hokey as the melding of teen melodrama and tree-dwelling witch horror can be, but if anything, “The Wretched” cements itself as a résumé film for those Pierces.

Grade: B -