A Dark Song

**The dark as it gets!**

It was too slow, one of those films that tests your patience. Not your regular horror flick, but the ingredient was little different than the usual for such theme. A limited cast film and most of the story takes place in an isolated mansion somewhere in Ireland. Where the two people assemble to do some kind of ritual to open the door for the dark force, as well as opposite to that with a reason. Very challenging attempt, had to go through many troubles in the process. But how it all turns out, whether they achieve what they were planning for is what takes us to the final stage where it comes to end with a tiny twist.

This is an independent Irish film. Feature film debut for the director. I don't recognise any of two actors, but they were good. Under a small cost, the film had a better quality. Well created atmosphere, the suspense kept the narration to go all way to the finale. Except the opening, the following parts lagged in any kind of development, but once the final act had begun, the scenario had changed and favoured to end high. I would say, that's what saved this film. Otherwise, I was getting ready to bash it. Yet not the best ending, an acceptable one regarding earlier section of the narration. So a decent film, that can be watched once.

_6/10_

Very original and unique movie. Not typical horror movie. What I liked the most about it was the atmosphere. It doesn't have special effects or lots of action, but it's interesting and it's dark. This is the type of movies I love. Also acting is decent.

The clever thing about *A Dark Song* is that it makes magic feel less like spectacle than administration. Buy months of food. Find exactly the right house. Draw the circles. Seal the boundary. Follow the instructions. Tell the truth. Absolutely do not improvise.

That last one turns out to be important.

Sophia hires occultist Joseph Solomon to perform the Abramelin ritual so she can contact her guardian angel. Catherine Walker and Steve Oram carry almost the entire film between them, and Oram is particularly good because Solomon never looks like cinema's idea of a magician. He's belligerent, grubby, practical and faintly irritated by everything. Yet the film gradually removes any comfortable possibility that he's simply a fraud.

It does this beautifully. A distant dog where there shouldn't be one. A bird hitting the window. Flowers appearing. A tremendous knock from beneath the floor. Then gold leaf falling around Sophia inside one of the ritual circles. Each incident is only slightly more impossible than the last, so supernatural certainty creeps into the room rather than kicking the door down.

Sophia's problem is that the ritual demands honesty and she has entered it lying about what she really wants. Grief has curdled into revenge, and the film increasingly treats those lies not merely as character flaws but as contaminants. Something has been invited in, but the wrong things seem perfectly happy to answer.

The house itself eventually becomes a wonderfully literal trap. After Solomon dies, Sophia tries to leave, walks towards apparent safety and finds herself approaching the same house again. The ritual has effectively unshackled the place from ordinary reality. Folk horror or not, that is very much FolknHell territory: someone discovering that the environment has rules they did not understand until escaping them became impossible.

There are imperfections. The supposed passage of many months is explained far better than it is shown, which slightly weakens the ordeal. But the supernatural escalation is handled with extraordinary restraint.

Our favourite manifestation may be the simplest: while Solomon is dying in another room, Sophia sees a black, faceless figure sitting opposite her, apparently smoking his cigarette. Then it isn't there. Death has turned up, had a fag and waited.

And somehow the film still has somewhere bigger to go.

When Sophia finally reaches her guardian angel, *A Dark Song* risks everything on showing us the thing it has spent the entire film promising. The enormous golden figure folded into the room could have been ridiculous. Instead it is genuinely awesome. Sophia came seeking revenge and discovers that what she actually needs is forgiveness.

A strange, frightening, unexpectedly beautiful film about occult ritual that takes magic completely seriously without ever becoming silly. That alone feels like a minor miracle.

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Reviewed by FolknHell, the folk horror film podcast · folknhell com

Hear the full FolknHell podcast discussion of A Dark Song: folknhell com/a-dark-song-review along with our other reviews, transcripts and episodes.