Britflicks' Stuart Wright gives us the lowdown on Neil Marshall's THE RECKONING,
THE RECKONING
Director: Neil Marshall
Writers: Edward Evers-Swindell, Charlotte Kirk and Neil Marshall
Cast: Joe Anderson, Charlotte Kirk, Sean Pertwee, Steven Waddington.
Neil Marshall’s sixth feature film takes us back to the bleak godfearing times of black death, political upheaval and religious infighting for the UK’s troubled soul. It stars Marshall’s co-writer, Charlotte Kirk as Grace, the grieving wife, struggling to make ends meet without her man to work the land. She is desperate to keep a roof over her head and terrified authorities will take her new born when the laird’s lacky, Pendleton, insinuates he’ll happily take other forms of payment. She offers him enough jewellery to cover six months, but he has no other intentions than having her. She fights back and for striving to keep her independence, she is tagged a witch, separated from her child and jailed. Enter the deliciously evil Moorcroft (Sean Pertwee), literally twirling his waxed moustache with the spirit of Vincent Price, as the inquisitor tasked with extracting her confession. He tells Pendleton: “London is lost. 1000s have fled to the country. It’s as if the day of judgement has finally arrived.” A statement about the black death that feels unnervingly prescient as we attend Frightfest from our homes.
With the aid of the ghosts of her husband and mother, Grace resists Moorcroft’s violent tools of persuasion and torture, but something more demonic and other worldly brews to wreak havoc on the self-righteous. THE RECKONING is a proper rip, roaring yarn about witchfinder era Britain that is best when the fighting is in full flow or skulls are being squashed under cartwheels.Click
