Starve Acre

The Gothic countryside horror finds a dysfunctional couple dealing with the death of their son and a shadow of eeriness that looms over their gloomy manor, Starve Acre. Richard (Matt Smith) is an archaeologist driven to find a secret in Starve Acre’s soil that can subvert all his scientific knowledge while his wife, Jules (Morfydd Clark), grieves with her own haunting methods.

Starve Acre takes time to establish its world, but the surreal payoff is worth sticking around. Based on Andrew Michael Hurley’s equally unsettling novel of the same name, Starve Acre never tries to romanticize its 70s-era countryside setting. The idyllic pace of the inhabitants of the Yorkshire Dales is mimicked in the film’s slow-burning first half. Writer-director Daniel Kokotajlo takes his own sweet time to unfurl the actual chaos, hiding it in layers, just like the fossils dug deep in archaeologist Richard’s backyard. Thankfully, the family’s youngling’s demise isn’t played out for any cheap shock value. And once the layers start unraveling in the wake of his death, expect a mixed bag of Wicker Man-style cults, [slight spoiler] ritualistic sacrifices, and some spine-chilling rabbits (that join the company of other buck-toothed creepers from Donnie Darko and Us). There’s a lot to unwrap towards the third act, and while not every minute detail might make sense at once, Starve Acre arguably stands out as a bold adaptation of an otherwise nihilistic folk horror novel.

Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark have great chemistry without any chemistry. Toning down his Shakespearean theatrics from House of the Dragon, Matt Smith offers an impeccably controlled performance as a grieving father who has bottled up his pain. As for Morfydd Clark, her unpredictable transition within the film acts as a subtle callback to her star-making turn in Saint Maud.  Starve Acre proves why she’s a perfect fit for experimental horrors. However, the film’s dramatic high points are easily the scenes that have this unhappy couple in the same frame. The excruciatingly painful distance between the pair is brought out with subtle emotions and bouts of awkward silence. Starve Acre has scope for some over-the-top, teary-eyed monologues on death and loss, but thankfully, Daniel Kokotajlo directs his masterful actors from a cold shoulder’s distance.

Starve Acre’s story has been told before, but the titular manor is still worth a visit. Whether the ending is enough to raise eyebrows, folk horror buffs would have already experienced such horrors in classic “post-death of a child” horrors like Don’t Look Now and “cult” classics like The Wicker Man. With A24 horrors like Hereditary similarly exploring the breakdown of a family after a personal loss, the atmospheric discomfort of Starve Acre also feels familiar. But much like the recent Neon psychological horror Longlegs, Starve Acre is stylish enough to move past pastiche status. There might be better options in its niche horror subgenre, but Starve Acre still deserves credit for its intentionally uncomfortable world-building (or rather world-revealing).