Mandrake

Cathy Madden is a divorced mom to a young son and a probation officer. She volunteers to take on Mary Laidlaw. According to the locals, Mary is a witch to be feared although Cathy refuses to believe in any superstition. When two kids go missing, suspicion immediately falls on Mary.

This is a British indie horror. The pacing is slow for the most part, but it has good solid spookiness especially from Mary Laidlaw. Cathy is an interesting and underneath troubled character. I was hoping for supernatural. This is fine. The ending is a bit muddled and I wanted a bigger fight. This is fine especially for a lower budget horror.

It seemed like there was much potential to be had here but it just slipped away somehow. The film quality and scene locations were great, seeming to set everything up for a dark, twisted and impactful little folk horror movie. But it just never materialized.

Stereotypical characters followed a stereotypical plot and ended up at a stereotypical ending... if they had focused more on the woods and the mandrake and the evil magic at work, it could have been a great movie, I think.

This is a good "ten o'clock Saturday morning movie to pass the time." But I wouldn't recommend caring about it after 6PM.

Too bad, it felt like there was a lot of missed potential...

In the past few years there has been a slew of psuedo-horror movies coming out if the U. K. Some of them have a comdey element to them, generally with zombies involved and others are just straight horror.

This one falls into the latter category and it follows the same exact format as all the others. Same atmosphere, same country setting, same slow build to nowhere.

It's just not original and becomes rather tedious to watch very early on.

As an example of the mindless boredom, there is a scene right at the beginning where a woman stares at another woman drinking tea for literally 5 minutes.

We get to watch her drink an entire cup. And not the little 6 ounce cups that are regular servings. This is a mug of tea.

Pouring mollasses is faster than the pace of this movie. And makes more sense. At least the mollasses goes somewhere.

The music is very inappropriate too. It's all mystical when nothing is happening!

It all boils down to this -- the actors arent the problem. They are relatively competent. It's the writing and the horrible directing.

We've seen this all before and it's been done better.

When I was given the opportunity to sit down and watch the 2022 horror movie "Mandrake", of course I did so. I had not heard about the movie prior to watching it, so I didn't know what I was in for, aside from the obvious deduction about it being a witchcraft movie of sorts, given the title of the movie and the movie's cover.

Writer Matt Harvey put together an entertaining enough script for the movie, however I have to say that I didn't really fully understand the meaning of the storyline. But it made for an adequate enough viewing experience, as the movie was genuinely mysterious and somewhat of a movie that slightly dug its way under the skin.

I was not familiar with the cast ensemble in "Mandrake", but they had some good actors and actresses on the cast list. And I will say that Derbhle Crotty, playing Mary Laidlaw, really carried the movie quite well with her performance.

Visually then "Mandrake" is low-key, but it works so well, because the effects are realistic, dark, brooding and have a somewhat ominous feel to them. And that works quite well in favor of the movie, adding a lot of atmosphere in the scenes.

While the movie's storyline was somewhat going above my head, then "Mandrake" was an interesting movie. Though I doubt that I will ever return to watch it a second time. But I will say that it is definitely a horror movie well-worth checking out.

My rating of director Lynne Davison's 2022 horror movie "Mandrake" lands on a five out of ten stars.

I love horror movies from the UK, British, Irish, Welsh and Scottish horror movies seem to be the most effective, probably because they tend to be more atmospheric and low key and don't go for gross out torture porn. Mandrake is a very moody and dark story with excellent acting and a very creepy musical score that helps build tension.

The two leads are very good and carry their roles well. It's nice to see a movie not relying on the typical damsel in distress trope, but having a strong female protagonist.

This is a very effective horror movie for those that want something a little different..