My opening paragraph is usually full of fluff and only serves as a useless introduction to the title in which I’m about to review. In this case, I think it’s in everyone’s best interests for me to get down to business… A Haunting in Cawdor is one of those movies that is bursting with potential, but was brought down several pegs by a lousy, incoherent script. It’s sad because I had so much hope for this title while watching my screener from Uncork’d Entertainment, however, I occasionally ended up with this movie as white noise in the background while I searched random pages on Wikipedia. Still, I have enough fair points to make and you can find all of them in my review below.
A Haunting in Cawdor is the second feature film written and directed by Phil Wurtzel. Cast members include Cary Elwes (“Psyche,” Saw 3D), Shelby Young (“American Horror Story,” “Days of Our Lives”), Michael Welch (Twilight, “Z Nation”), Alexandria DeBerry, Charlie King, Samantha Rickard, Julie Grisham, Jamey Grisham, Philip David Black, Patrick Hunter, Jordan Moody, Matt Pejakovich, David Rolando, Matt Rumer, Ryan Wurtzel, Darcye Wurtzel and Bethany Edlund.
“Vivian Miller (Young) is a young woman who’s serving out her jail sentence at a work release program in the Midwest. Her 90 days of probation takes her to The Cawdor Barn Theatre, a dilapidated summer stock theater run by Lawrence O’Neil (Elwes). Vivian’s arrival in Cawdor starts a terrifying series of events that brings Lawrence’s secret past to the present. After Vivian views an old taped stage production of Macbeth, a force of evil is unleashed which soon turns its sights on her. With the help of Roddy (Welch), a local outcast, Vivian sets about trying to discover who the supernatural killer on the tape is before she becomes the next victim.” – Friel Films
As I mentioned above, A Haunting in Cawdor starts off with a lot of potential. I remember applauding Uncork’d Entertainment for picking up a movie for distribution with such good camera work and cinematography, so major props to Stephen Smith and anyone else who worked in those departments. Honestly, your work was one of the highlights of the movie. The setting, an old theatre in the middle of the woods, was the perfect location for a horror film and the local curse surrounding the area was an over-used but beloved plot device. During my first fifteen minutes I thought, “This is great,” before everything started to go to Hell. Cohesively, A Haunting in Cawdor is way too long for the type of movie it falls into. It’s just about an hour and forty minutes long and the first character doesn’t die until the hour mark. Instead of suspense and gore, those elements are replaced with too much backstory, too much talking and not enough interest to keep a viewer watching.
Now, I fully understand that A Haunting in Cawdor is not the typical horror movie. I think it leans more towards science fiction with horror and drama as the accompanying themes. This title was never meant to be a Carrie or Friday the 13th type blood bath, so I have to criticize all the marketing materials for the false flags that are bound to fool anyone who picks this up. However, I can somewhat understand their marketing ploy at the same time being that this movie is a clusterfuck of subgenres and filled with cult classic homages. I mean, was this an experimental film of sorts? It was almost as if Phil Wurtzel picked five random movies from his DVD collection and threw them into a melting pot and A Haunting in Cawdor was born. And don’t even get me started on the plot twist in the last half hour. All of this time spent developing the theatre’s urban legend and then we take a weird A Nightmare on Elm Street turn for the worse and… I was so lost.
It really is too bad that A Haunting in Cawdor maimed itself with a bad script because all of the elements were in place to make this a hit in the independent circuit. All of the cast members were fantastic and the four top billed actors were incredible. When rarely applicable, the special effects were great. At the end of the day I did enjoy the mystery and the beginning stages of the story. It really is just that after the first twenty or so movies this movie tumbles… and tumbles… and tumbles. Don’t let the movie poster above fool you guys, what you think you see on the cover is not what you get. This is kind of a snoozer. Final Score: 4.5 out of 10.
