‘Eight for Silver’: Film Review | Sundance 2021
Boyd Holbrook performs a late nineteenth century pathologist investigating a violent curse laying waste to landowners and villagers in Sean Ellis’ reanimation of the werewolf legend.
Author-director Sean Ellis revisits the werewolf legend as a fogbound descent into Victorian Gothic in Eight for Silver. Led by Boyd Holbrook as a pathologist within the late 1800s who is aware of a factor or two about nightmarish curses, stalking lycanthropic beasts and household tragedy, the movie is extra suspenseful than scary, larger on sustained ambiance than well-rounded characters. Nevertheless it strikes alongside at a stately tempo and stays involving, pushed by eerie ambient music, soupy chiaroscuro visuals and sporadic bursts of blood, gore and physique horror. It gained’t disturb Lon Chaney Jr. in his grave, however nonetheless gives meat for style followers to chew on.
Of all of the basic Common monster films, 1941’s The Wolf Man probably ranks up there with Dracula as inspiration for the widest vary of reinterpretations. The lavish however lackluster 2010 remake that starred Benicio del Toro made far much less of a mark than John Landis’ 1981 black comedy twist, An American Werewolf in London.
The mythology has been fodder for highschool hijinks in Teen Wolf, feminine coming-of-age in Ginger Snaps, feminist fairy-tale revisionism in The Firm of Wolves and ’90s white-collar emasculation angst in Mike Nichols’ starry Wolf. Amongst up to date spins, 2002’s taut Canine Troopers, a few British navy train gone awry within the Scottish Highlands, deservedly has its admirers. However my favourite stays 1981’s The Howling, with Joe Dante and John Sayles proving a tough combo to beat by way of good B-movie thrills and sly wit.
Ellis reverts to a extra basic folkloric mannequin maybe nearer to the 1961 Hammer entry Curse of the Werewolf, which starred a younger Oliver Reed. Although the brand new movie is sort of totally in English, the director intentionally muddies specifics of the setting, filming in southwestern France however mixing Celtic and Anglo names with French, and having kids sing a standard Irish tune across the piano.
It opens with spectacular recreation of the visceral trench warfare of the Battle of the Somme, the place German machine gun hearth and bombs yield ugly sights within the British-French medical tent, together with buckets of amputated limbs. Three bullets are faraway from one soldier, Edward, together with a fourth — bigger, conical, manufactured from stable silver and positively not of German manufacture. The primary motion then rewinds 35 years, to a rustic property whose proprietor, Seamus Laurent (Alistair Petrie), enlists mercenaries to remove the “gypsy” drawback.
Whereas the Roma clan declare the land belongs to them, Seamus and his clergy advisors say there’s nothing documented that may’t be modified of their favor. However an assault that was purported to scare them off goes to blood-curdling extremes because the encampment is torched. One man is dismembered and propped up like a human scarecrow, his severed limbs changed with straw, and a girl buried alive alongside together with her set of silver enamel. However not earlier than she vows revenge: “We’ll poison your sleep.”
It is an thrilling set-up — pitch-dark, heartless, barbaric and efficient at displaying the scant regard of the rich landowners for the decrease social lessons. Ellis additionally factors up the way in which Seamus’ household — spouse Isabelle (Kelly Reilly) and kids Charlotte (Amelia Crouch) and Edward (Max Waterproof coat) — are sheltered from the brutality being unleashed on their doorstep. However that ignorance does not final lengthy, as soon as their goals are disturbed by violent visions.
The children from the village settlement are contaminated by the identical nightmares (typically to low cost impact), prompting their ringleader, Timmy (Tommy Rodger), to dig up the silver gnashers. This proves unwise because it unleashes the beast in him, leaving Edward with a nasty chew. Feverish, wheezing and displaying an aversion to brilliant gentle, the Laurent boy disappears quickly after, with Charlotte catching a glimpse of his entrails writhing like tendrils from his abdomen earlier than he goes mysteriously lacking.
In the meantime, touring pathologist John McBride (Holbrook) has arrived at an area inn asking about gypsies within the space. When the search by way of the misty woods for Edward turns up nothing, McBride is summoned to the Laurent home, staying on and revealing his private stake because the investigation continues. Casualties multiply, notably in a shivery scene with three area staff and one other by which a housemaid (Roxane Duran) is interrupted whereas hanging out laundry.
Ellis, who additionally serves as DP, and manufacturing designer Pascal Le Guellec excel at creating an oppressive setting, with the home boarded up for security as chew marks on the victims point out the presence of a wolf. Even the daytime exterior scenes unfold in murky half-light whereas evening brings the shadowy cloak of moonlight and interiors glimmering with the faint glow of candlelight.
The movie stays visually hanging, displaying proof of Ellis’ background in nonetheless images. However the storytelling grows steadily much less incisive as he stirs in undercooked components regarding the 30 items of silver paid to Judas for his betrayal and repeated speak of the Beast of Gévaudan. That man-eating animal or animals are believed to have terrorized a complete province a century earlier, throughout the time of Louis XV, although Ellis fudges the historical past by having McBride declare to have been stationed there with the military throughout the carnage. (Christophe Gans’ 2001 French motion movie, Brotherhood of the Wolf, is predicated on that legend.)
Different components, too, appear tossed in and left unexplored, such because the trace of gorgeous Isabelle’s lack of sexual achievement from boring outdated Seamus, and the suggestion that having studly McBride in the home would possibly repair that. A scene by which the shirtless pathologist investigates bumps within the evening carrying solely his lengthy johns appears supposed both to additional that notion or to fulfill audiences thirsty for a glimpse of hunky Holbrook liberated from his interval garb. Given how gloomy and chilly the unheated mansion appears to be like, the scene appears a contact gratuitous.
The restraint proven elsewhere by Ellis is each a blessing and a curse. The choice for sensible results, animatronics and old style creature designs makes the film a refreshing change from so many style chillers that rely an excessive amount of on shoddy CGI.
Although the film is rarely unengaging, in the end, it does not fairly ship. The director (greatest recognized for Metro Manila and Anthropoid) has a real dedication to the propulsive energy of temper, however he typically appears much less attentive to the mechanics of horror, selecting even to indicate the climactic motion with all of the villagers within the boarded-up church in a frenzied blur. He ties the story components collectively tidily sufficient, however regardless of the heady local weather of worry, you are left craving hairier thrills and extra enamel.
Venue: Sundance Movie Pageant (Premieres)
Manufacturing corporations: Liddell Leisure
Solid: Boyd Holbrook, Kelly Reilly, Alistair Petrie, Roxane Duran, Nigel Betts, Stuart Bowman, Simon Kunz, Amelia Crouch, Max Waterproof coat, Tommy Rodger, Áine Rose Daly, Pascale Becouze, Jicey Carina
Director-screenwriter: Sean Ellis
Producers: Pete Shilaimon, Mickey Lidell, Sean Ellis
Government producers: Jacob Yakob, Alison Semenza King
Director of images: Sean Ellis
Manufacturing designer: Pascal Le Guellec
Costume designer: Madeline Fontaine
Music: Robin Foster
Editors: Yorgos Mavropsardis, Richard Mettler
Particular results supervisor: Christian-Axel Vollard
Casting: Elaine Grainger
Gross sales: CAA, ICM
115 minutes
