Heir of the Witch

Heir of the Witch is a horror thriller following a young woman that finds the family curse coming back to haunt her. She finds her quiet life turned upside down by temptation as her nightmares from her past increase.

This is a horror that dives into the idea of coming from a family that was branded a witch, generations before. It shows the increased burden placed on them in modern life. The story gets to play it out in a mix of soap opera drama and nightmares haunting the descendant. This gets to create good scares and ones that have a lasting scare factor in the nightmares experienced.

The movie has strong performances throughout the cast with writer, director and star Victoria U Bell's performance shining through. If you want a nightmare fuelled story, you will get one here.

I watched the vast majority of this movie just hating it. It seemed like the plot was was just barely going through the standard horror tropes. All the main characters are bland or unlikable. The main actress is playing a plain and overlooked woman, but she's the most radiant one there.

So far, those are pretty typical problems for a horror movie. But the absolute worst problem is the pacing. Everything plods along with very little rhyme or reason. We get largely useless flashbacks. There are several abrupt time jumps that, instead of being effective, feel like scenes were just missing. One gap is probably eight months long, with no forewarning. With one of the victims there's a scene where we think logically that she surely must have been killed, but shortly after we get another scene where she's still alive and not even addressing having gone through anything earlier, followed quickly by a suggestion that she just got killed for real that time, but no actual scene explaining any of it. I think you're supposed to guess, but at that point it doesn't seem to fit what we know.

Closer to the end than it had any reason to, the movie took a wild turn. There was a quick succession of deaths, and a major mystery was revealed that I never saw coming. A couple of scenes were revisited, with a quick suggestion that there were other important things going on. But it's already over, credits are rolling. This was the making of a great movie. But it doesn't really work to just stuff it at the end like that.

This script badly needed a rewrite to take care of the pacing. The first two thirds of the movie should have been the first third, maybe. We got some hints, but there could have been a few more, maybe some red herrings. Parts that do not contribute to the overall plot (and a few characters even) should have just been ripped out. We needed more time at the end, and we could have seen some of the repercussions of what happened. It doesn't even have to all be denouement, if it were parceled out better we could process each step and build suspense about what that one was going to mean before the next one hit. And the loose threads could have been addressed in a satisfying way. For example, at this point I don't know if an important character lived or died, based upon what we know at the end.

I hope I danced around the spoilers successfully. Even knowing that there is a spoiler can in itself be a kind of spoiler, but I mention it so you don't give up on this movie before it's over. At least one of the reviews said they bailed before it finished, which is a shame. Fast forward a little if you have to, but don't just turn it off.

What a roller coaster ride of twists and turns. What a great story, that leaves you with a queezy feeling of wanting more. Color and SPFX were on point for an independent film, it looks great. Special effects were well placed and not over done which helped with delivery and get their point across. The movie was well cast with an awesome performance by Victoria U. Bell. I really enjoyed the kill scenes as they were original and SCARY... Its a film where it may be a little hard to follow at first, but it all comes together in the end. There were breadcrumbs throughout the film, most of what you pick up on the 2nd time you watch it. I highly recommend this movie!

Trying to get ahead in her career, a woman tries to acclimate herself to the demands of the new job she finds herself in, but the more she finds herself in this situation the more a family curse involving a witch's legacy lording over her causes her life to unravel and forces her to stop it.

This was an incredibly fun and enjoyable genre effort. One of the finer points with the film is the stellar background here which brings about the highly inventive setup of the witch and the backstory that goes into play here. With the initial background involving the special witch and the creation which all ties into the particular setup involving the domineering familial curse lingering over her where she has the opportunity to focus on her career so that the implications won't affect her. With the visions and dreams on display involving the previous family members who became involved with the curse and what will happen to her if she follows the guidelines of the particular curse while not letting her work life get interrupted by the idea all give the film a great overall starting setup. Once this gets brought into play, there's quite a lot to enjoy here with the curse coming to fruition in the form of the strange woman who starts to integrate herself into the friend group. After getting the reveal of this early on with the attack on the sleazy friend, the idea of the witch coming to take her out as she tries to continue her burgeoning relationship with her bosses that has been propelling things along rather nicely around these other storylines. With the more she hangs around them and the figure's presence becomes far more frequent, the horrific visions and taunts of the witch become that much more prominent with the curse trying to bring out her true legacy like the other members of her family as that turns into the highly enjoyable and effective finale. Fully aware of the witch's plans and how that's going to play out as the incidents start to become more violent, this all comes together into a brutal and somewhat shocking resolution with quite a lot to like here. There isn't much holding this one back, but it does have some slight drawbacks. Among its few flaws is the decided lack of actual witchcraft here as this is brought up only rarely in the first half of the film. It has a massive effect throughout the film influencing a lot of what transpires here, from her actions and treatment of others, but that doesn't translate to actual scenes with the figure on display. Only a few scenes really feature the witch until the end as the majority of the film instead focuses on a questionable romance angle between her and a married man that's never believable and highlights the other issue here in a scattered plot that whips around quite frequently to the point it's possible to lose track of what's happening. Overall, these are the factors that bring the film down as a whole.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Nudity, and violence-against-children.

There is a reason the director is the lead actor. It's hard to find anyone who wants to star in someone's ego driven movie that's ultimately a flop and hard to watch. We didn't even finish the movie. Can we get a refund please? Some people need to understand just because you have money for a movie, doesn't mean you know what you are doing. Save yourself your time and money and watch something with meaning. This movie is a typical low budget indie film that based on folk lore that's slow, drawn out and never really comes together. Read the professional movie critics reviews as well, and don't bother with the paid for friend reviews because they feel bad for the director.