Albania, current day. Medium sized city in a mountainous region, generally modern with cars and busses and neighborhoods and cellphones and infrastructure. Middle aged man runs a meat market shop with his (late teenager) son, selling freshly slaughtered sheep, etc. But business is light. Times are tough all over for everybody, but they all seem to make ends meet one way or another. Wife at home, and a younger sister by a year or two.
Everybody has heard the rumors of a witch living up in the mountains just outside of the city. The story has been around for years, maybe generations. Some consider it just a fairy tale. Others think she really exists.
The story is that there was a woman who lived in the hills, and she had many children in her younger years. But, they all died in infancy. Every one of them. Some say by natural causes; others say she suffocated them. In her later years, she took in stray children. Street kids, feral kids, orphans.
We get some strange stuff happening down in town- extracted teeth, nightmares, food poisoning, people who died long ago are seen walking around town. Then we get some confrontations between the feral kids, who are now young adults, and our Albanian family. The guns come out and bad stuff happens.
It’s not boring or anything. It just doesn’t really become a horror movie until the last third. And well, no, not even that. It just gets a lot bloodier at the end. Even in the big final climactic scene, there isn’t anything supernatural about anything.
It is very well done. Very Euro. The pros far outweigh the cons, but a couple minor criticisms- although none of it is shaky cam (thankfully), much of it is handheld, and I would have preferred for a bunch more tripod. Also, too heavy on the colored filters. I do like the unsaturated, gritty look to it all. But too much with the blue or green or grey or whatever.
Well done. I guess it would be more of a home invasion flick with a quest for revenge than anything else. Not much witchery going on in it. But the witch herself is very impressive.
One word of warning- there is a super graphic scene in the slaughterhouse. As graphic as it gets. Not CGI. Same deal as the turtle in Cannibal Holocaust, but this one takes place in a proper slaughterhouse, so I guess that makes it OK.
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