THE ACCURSED (a.k.a Severed Silence) ** USA 2021 Dir: Kathryn Michelle & Elizabeta Vidovic. 85 mins
Did you know that the star of this movie, Yancy Butler is the daughter of Joe Butler, Drummer for The Lovin’ Spoonful? Their hit single ‘Summer in the City’ features in 1982 slasher movie ‘Girls Nite Out’ which was recently released by Arrow Video. I learned all this via a Google search as this disappointing movie played in the background. It starts out well enough with an interesting pre-credits sequence and Yancy Butler is ably supported by Goran Visnjic, but it became a bit dull and repetitive.
The film focuses on Hana (Butler) who has spent decades suppressing a maleficent curse which had been placed on her bloodline. When an outsider knowingly unleashes the curse, the family begin to die one by one.
I really appreciated that the filmmakers tried to do something different and obviously quite personal with this and found the lore and rituals featured in the film very interesting, but it’s really more of a family drama disguised as a horror movie and I’m not their target audience.
The CGI was passable, the photography and setting aesthetically pleasing and the actors are invested in their roles but I lost interest. I watched until the end out of respect but ultimately for me, this film was forgettable.
Review by Phil Davies Brown
THE ACCURSED is available on Amazon