A defiant teenage boy, struggling with his parents' imminent divorce, faces off with a thousand year-old witch, who is living beneath the skin of and posing as the woman next door.... (Full plot summary below)
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A defiant teenage boy, struggling with his parents' imminent divorce, faces off with a thousand year-old witch, who is living beneath the skin of and posing as the woman next door.
Leave your thoughts about The Wretched.
| Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpIt’s an honest to goodness real movie with a mind of its own; practical FX work and creature design help, too, as essential to what distinguishes The Wretched from its influences as the Pierce brothers’ writing. |
| IndieWireEric KohnThe Wretched doesn’t reinvent the rules, but it has a timeliness to it that’s hard to shake. There’s not quite enough substance here to launch a franchise, but with a story so attuned to perils of a neglected world, it doesn’t need a sequel when we’re living in it every day. |
| Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerThe Wretched may be guilty of stealing shamelessly from "Rear Window," "Disturbia," and the best summercamp slasher and small-town supernatural chillers, but none of those were exactly raw innovators, either. |
| The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThere's enough solid internal logic mixed in with the murky ambiguities to keep The Wretched far more compelling than its generic title might suggest. The filmmakers are working to a formula, but they definitely have fun with it, which is contagious. |
| VarietyDennis HarveyThe film successfully mixes together a lot of things, from the waterfront tourist-town setting of “Jaws” to a general teen fantasy-adventure feel that tempers (without weakening) horror content variably redolent of “It,” “Fright Night” and myriad other predecessors. If originality isn’t a strong suit here, the film’s conviction and polish make that a minor sin. |
| The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisBlessed with shivery setups and freaky effects — here, skin-crawling is literal — The Wretched transforms common familial anxieties into flesh, albeit crepey and creeping. |
| The PlaylistAsher LubertoGenre buffs are probably more interested in witch’s kidnapping children than Ben’s family divorce. But the Pierce’s deliver on both fronts, so much so that you may never walk into a basement again. |
| IGNMatt FowlerThe Wretched's endeavor to meld a junior mystery with some pretty extreme horror works more than it doesn't, but ultimately neither side of this narrative coin gets explored as much as it should. Despite this, as a well shot and admirably executed thriller, it's a good entry into the catalogue of on-the-cheap scares. |
| The A.V. ClubA.A. DowdA potboiler that doesn’t break any molds or reinvent any wheels. Still, there’s something to be said for setting modest goals and achieving them; if this really was some lost relic of the VHS era, it’d pass the blind rental test: There is a witch, and she’s as creepy as the box art would surely promise. |
| Los Angeles TimesGeoff BerkshireWhat the Pierce brothers lack in flavorful storytelling or compelling characters, they almost entirely make up for in good old-fashioned atmosphere and suspense. The Wretched rarely surprises, but it’s well-crafted enough to get under your skin anyway, with an able assist from the creepy camerawork of cinematographer Conor Murphy and unsettling score by Devin Burrows. |
