Daniel Kokotajilo’s Starve Acre opens with three stanzas from a Neil Willoughby poem, “The Dandelion”. It details an ominous figure waiting for a sacrifice so he may return to the natural world. It’s a spooky tale that sets the tone and narrative conflict for this feature, a film that proves just as atmospheric if not always scary.
Set in 1970s Yorkshire, Richard and Jules (Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark) are parents to young Owen (Arthur Shaw). They have moved to Richard’s family home out in the country, where Richard, an archaeologist, hopes to give Owen the good, lasting memories he never had with his father. But Owen appears to be suffering from an elusive disorder, as he has violent outbursts while claiming to hear whistling from an unknown source. When tragedy strikes, Richard finds himself digging deeper into his past with his father, uncovering disturbing secrets about the land they now live on.
The film takes plenty of inspiration from folklore with its use of rural locations and references to Paganism, the latter of which informs the supernatural mystery at its heart. Through its use of lingering shots of the surrounding forest area, in particular a mysterious but distinct tree, the film generates an eldritch atmosphere of foreboding. Beneath the mundanity and domesticity of this nuclear, if somewhat turbulent, family life is a creeping unknown that gradually reveals itself the further Richard figuratively, and eventually literally, digs into the history of the land around them. Amping up the eeriness is Matthew Herbert’s chilling score, which creeps under your skin and lingers alongside the off-putting visuals.
As the film progresses, the spreading nature of grief and trauma, akin to roots growing under the soil, inform its thematic explorations. Such subjects have been popular in the horror genre, whether it was Hereditary in the 2010s or Don’t Look Now in the 1970s. Starve Acre’s examination of these topics doesn’t excavate as much as it could, namely due to the film taking over twenty minutes to reach its proposed inciting incident, but Kokotajilo’s direction does a good job at infusing grief into the domesticity of family life. He shows how much harder ordinary tasks become when dwelling in sorrow, as well as how unresolved wounds from the past can bleed into your contemporary practices, a hypothesis most seen in how Richard’s treatment of his own son is an attempt to avoid repeating the mistakes of his much stricter father. The carefully chosen visuals and prevailing atmosphere make the very concept of domesticity seem more like a trap than a normalcy.
Smith and Clark give excellent performances that tap into the existentialism and desperation that comes with trauma, be it past or present. The couple find themselves going in different directions in response to their grief, with Jules stagnantly wallowing in it and Richard being pushed to go further and further into his past in an attempt to explain the present. It is in Richard’s stubborn search for answers that the themes are crystalised and given their weight. In tandem with the atmosphere, the film captures the humanity of its characters and the ways life can feel claustrophobic when alone with our worst experiences.
It’s just a pity that the film isn’t scary enough. The biggest chills are generated from the grounded responses to grief that emerge from the parents; in other words, in the sequences that feel closer to reality. When the plot ventures into supernatural territory, with its inclusion of the aforementioned horror tree proving oddly reminiscent of William Friedkin’s The Guardian, it loses a bit of its edge, even if the revelations that transpire tie into the thematic aims. The slow burn pace the film adopts proves to be a double edge sword, as while it works with the scenes of grieving, it tries one’s patience during the film’s odder moments, such as when the more overtly Pagan elements of the film’s conflict emerge through chanting neighbours and jarring cutaways. It’s an atmospheric piece that loses its immersive feel between the plot twists.
What we have is a confidently made picture boasting a myriad of spooky sequences. It even amounts to one absolute belter of a final visual. One just wishes that the film tapped into the deeper horrors of its central conflict more. Starve Acre satisfies well enough for those with an appreciation for atmosphere but falls short of reaching the heights of 2024’s more prominent horrors, be it Longlegs or Late Night with the Devil.
★★★
In UK cinemas now/ Matt Smith, Morfydd Clark, Arthur Shaw, Robert Emms, Erin Richards, Roger Barclay / Dir: Daniel Kokotajlo / BFI / 15