The Wicked – review

Director: Peter Winther

Release date: 2013

Contains spoilers


Ah the witch (Cassie Keller) and her forays over to the vampire genre – she normally does it through a bit of energy vampirism but it is full on flesh eating that sees her grace these pages today. Not just cannibalism as a dietary choice, however. In this the consumption of flesh makes the witch both young and immortal (actually there is a set of feeding rules in this, which might only be in-film folklore/myth but may also be accurate within the film’s lore).

This is quite an accomplished film as well, in terms of filming and some of the sfx. It isn’t perfect and the story itself is a tad throwaway but it is a nice way to spend an hour and forty-five minutes, even if I suspect there isn’t too much repeat play.

the Wicked's House

It starts off with a young girl, Amanda (Caitlin Carmichael, True Blood), crying in bed. When her mother (Nicole Forester, Vampires Anonymous) comes in she says she is scared that the Wicked has come for her. It becomes apparent that her and a friend went off with some older kids and threw stones at an old abandoned house, said to be home to the Wicked. We later hear it is a rite of passage – throw a stone and hit the house, you’re safe. Break a window and the Wicked comes for you. She broke a window.

dragged from bed

Her mother calms her down, saying that she remembers the story and her and her friends have been in the house and there was no witch, it is just a story to scare kids. As she says this we get a view of Amanda's house, through the bedroom window, in “witch vision”. She tells Amanda to go to sleep and leaves. Amanda feels a draft, her window has opened on its own. She starts to scream as some force drags her from her bed towards the window. When her mother gets back, the girl is gone.

Sammy and Max

Sammy (Diana Hopper) lives with her drunk mother. As she leaves their home that morning, she covers her mother who is sleeping drunk on the porch. She is heading to see her friend Max (Devon Werkheiser, Casper’s Scare School). Max is at the funeral wake (at home) for his grandfather. An illusionist who has left Max all his paraphernalia (that doesn’t come into this enough). His older brother Zach (Justin Deeley) is planning an illicit overnight camp (as he should be babysitting) with friends Carter (Chase Yi) and Tracy (Jackelyn Gauci). The trip is going to be near the old house and Tracy has arranged for new girl Julie (Jess Adams) to go. Sammy gets wind of the trip and tells Max.

throat cut

In the meantime we see a ranger out in the forest. He is killed by the Wicked by having his throat ripped out. Two things struck here – the rule of the Wicked is tied to broken windows, and although he mentions tearing the house down, whilst on the radio, there is no indication that he broke a window (so why kill him). In fact this breaking of the internal logic is a flaw in the film, as later all the kids seem to be on the menu even though there are only two broken windows. The other thing was that the film used a cgi blood effect but it actually worked (indeed it only failed when screen captured, on screen it didn’t strike me as a bad effect as these often can). We notice in this scene that her hand is leathery and monstrous.

the Wicked emerges

The basic premise is that the older kids get to the house and throw rocks. A window breaks but we are not sure who threw the rock as they all went at the same time (this could be the excuse for all being on the menu, but one would expect the witch to know). Separately Sammy and Max turn up, intent on filming and blackmailing Zach, throw stones and Max breaks the window – they see the Wicked emerge from the house and run but she catches him. Julie finds Amanda’s teddy and convinces Zach to try and rescue the girl (who is still alive), assuming she was taken by a mortal kidnapper.

ground alive

So, lore. The Wicked was the survivor of a coven of witches who were burnt at the stake (the date of 100 years before seemed too recent, conversely the house did look too modern – and still had working electric despite being abandoned). The Wicked takes those who break a window and eats the young kids to become young, older kids to become strong and beautiful children to become beautiful. We do see as she eats people, having put them alive through a meat grinder (the effects here are poor, the ground flesh looking poor), her looking in a mirror to check her monstrous visage. Eventually she becomes young and pretty – bar the rows of sharp teeth that remain. She can be warded through a witch bottle (this was one thing we get via Max’s grandfather, who bequeathed him such a bottle that Sammy broke).

become young

The effects in this were pretty well done other than that gore effect I mentioned. There is a nice coming of age/blossoming romance story with Max and Sammy, and the older kids’ motivations seemed pretty well drawn. There is a nice “crying wolf” element too. The horror levels weren’t drawn that high. There was perhaps a little less atmosphere than might have been and the gore could have been ramped up (and improved) if they had wanted to. However this didn’t outstay its welcome, despite the above average running time and the young actors all did rather well – especially Diana Hopper as Sammy. 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

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On Demand @ Amazon UK