Mandrake

Great collective performances of the Mandrake's cast sets the movie's standard high. Great dialogues not even the slightest overdoing. It's a unique story with an equally unique northern Irish setup. The remoteness and it's culture is fitting very well with the damp gloomy woods of witches. Cinematography is excellent intensifying the this folk horror story. Great visuals rich with the cold misty colour of the surroundings. Mandrake is a story involving a infamous criminal out of prison and a demon figure roaming marshland so that's a pretty good mix and it's all about people who become naive due to great expectations.

Cathy Madden is a divorced mom to a young son and a probation officer. She volunteers to take on Mary Laidlaw. According to the locals, Mary is a witch to be feared although Cathy refuses to believe in any superstition. When two kids go missing, suspicion immediately falls on Mary.

This is a British indie horror. The pacing is slow for the most part, but it has good solid spookiness especially from Mary Laidlaw. Cathy is an interesting and underneath troubled character. I was hoping for supernatural. This is fine. The ending is a bit muddled and I wanted a bigger fight. This is fine especially for a lower budget horror.

I love horror movies from the UK, British, Irish, Welsh and Scottish horror movies seem to be the most effective, probably because they tend to be more atmospheric and low key and don't go for gross out torture porn. Mandrake is a very moody and dark story with excellent acting and a very creepy musical score that helps build tension.

The two leads are very good and carry their roles well. It's nice to see a movie not relying on the typical damsel in distress trope, but having a strong female protagonist.

This is a very effective horror movie for those that want something a little different..

This is going to be difficult. I have to use 600 characters to say how dull this film is when it can be summed up very easily in just 17 characters, "this is a boring film". So, by necessity, there's going to be a lot of padding, five hundred and eighty seven characters worth to be very precise. I could try using a longer word for dull, like tedious for example but it's only three characters more than dull. I wonder what the longest word I can find meaning dull? Hold on, I'll look it up....wearisome, that seems to be the longest word meaning dull. Unless you know better. So, I think that's about 600. That's good enough.

This is an Entertaining folk horror, with a tense build up with strong characters. The extremely creepy and scary atmosphere is well curated and it's obvious alot of effort has gone into this production. The film is well structured and had a satisfying ending.

I enjoyed the rural Ireland setting.which I felt have an interesting insight into the dark side of Irish folk stories.

This is a very decent horror story which doesn't rely on shocks and gore or a damsel in distress.

The performances are very strong and the production is a showcase for up and coming talent.

Conclusion is 5 stars would recommend.