Sorcery (2024)

"Art House Folk Horror From Chile"

After its UK premiere at this year's Glasgow Film Festival, Christopher Murray's 19th century tale of witchcraft and persecution in Chile (and based on actual witchcraft trials according to the press release) gets a cinema release.

Rosa (Valentina Véliz Caileo) works as a serving girl at the farm of a German colonialist. When all his sheep die, the farmer blames Rosa's father, and kills him by getting the farmer's two pet dogs to tear him apart. Finding no justice by appealing to the mayor of the town, Rosa first visits the community's Christian church for guidance before embarking on a quest for revenge.

She eventually travels to the remote house of a man rumoured to be the king of the sorcerers. Through him and his group, the two young sons of the German farmer are turned into dogs. The witches are caught and put on trial but presiding over it is the unhelpful mayor who happens to have a wife undergoing a difficult pregnancy that only the witches may be able to help her with.

SORCERY is a measures, languidly-paced piece of work that, as you might expect from the above, is on one level about the persecution of natives by colonisers and on the other about whether or not the powers Rosa comes into contact with are actually real. The opening half of the film develops nicely with the gloomily sombre landscape of Rosa's travels photographed nicely and some good character development.

Unfortunately, as the film goes on its starts to meander and lose focus, such that by the end you wonder exactly what the intentions of the film-makers are. It's an interesting piece of work and if you're an art house folk horror fan it's certainly not one to miss. Just don't expect too much. Here's the trailer:

SORCERY is out in UK cinemas  from Sovereign Releasing on Friday 14th June 2024