“Are you sure we followed the coordinates exactly?”
It’s a question you don't really want to hear when on a journey through the foreboding wilderness. Yet, in The North Witch, directed by Bruce Wemple (My Best Friend’s Dead, The Hangman, Island Escape) and written by Anna Shields (Dawn of the Beast, Monstrous, Little Bi Peep), it’s precisely what what we hear as five women go on a quest to locate a mysterious cabin which vanished over 50 years ago.
As the credits tell us, this is no ordinary cabin. Since 1972 over forty people have gone missing in a remote stretch of Canada known as The Barren Lands. Their disappearance, according to locals, is linked to The Barren Cabin which disappeared in 1963, occasionally reappearing only to vanish again.
Weird, right? It’s a nice set-up for what transpires as Madison (Shields), who recently was given the boot by her roommates, manages to get herself invited to the creepiest trek through the wilderness imagined. Sure, the events are to be expected and there doesn’t seem to be many new elements to the mix, but the vibe is unnerving and - thanks to some of the camera shots - we are always on guard for whatever awaits the girls on this journey into the darkest parts of the unnatural world.
Along with her friend Gemma (Jessy Holtermann, previously seen in War of the Worlds: Extinction, The Christmas Brew, Talia (Kaitlyn Lunardi, Romance with My Vampire Brother, The Hangman), Alice (Ameerah Briggs, The Church, Population Purge) and Laura (Brianna Cala, The 27 Club, The Flip Side), Madison winds up in the middle of a supernatural storm which sends her straight into the mouth of madness: The Barren Cabin!
And it seems like something has wanted her there all along!
With a strong atmosphere throughout and a wonderfully on point sound design, The North Witch is this December’s go-to horror flick for chilling and deeply unsettling thrills and spills. There might be nothing new on its supernatural docket, but that doesn’t keep this one from maintaining an eerie mood where anything is possible.
Thankfully, composer Nate VanDeusen (Altered Hours, The Tomorrow Job), is along for the ride to help create a score which delivers on the unsettling goods. As death claims each of the women, it seems there is something waiting for them on the other side . . . something not of this world.
Uncork’d Entertainment’s latest horror/thriller, The North Witch, is now available On Digital and On Demand.
MPAA Rating: Unrated.
Runtime: 80 mins
Director: Bruce Wemple
Writer: Anna Shields
Cast: Anna Shields; Kaitlyn Lunardi; Jessy Holtermann
Genre: Horror
Tagline: If you meet her, death will come.
Memorable Movie Quote: "Alice is gone!"
Distributor: Uncork'd Entertainment
Official Site:
Release Date: Now available Digital and On Demand
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: Five women embark on a search for a cabin that mysteriously went missing 60 years ago. They soon realize that watching them is a sinister, demented being. Can they survive the horrors of The North Witch, or is death the better way out?
