The Reckoning (2020) (Film Review)

The Reckoning (2020) The name of this film is “Sorcière” in French, which means Witch!

Neil Marshall has made a lot of good films, as far as I’m concerned. I really liked The Lair (2022), Hellboy – Call of Darkness (2019), The Descent (2005).Now I just have to see Dog Soldiers (2002) & Doomsday (2008) !The Descent 2 was far less good, as it was directed by Jon Harris… who doesn’t seem to have made another film since! 😉

This film is the second collaboration I’ve seen between Neil Marshall and the excellent actress Charlotte Kirk. Here, the film rests on her shoulders and she takes it on really well. 500,000 women were tortured and burnt alive for being thought to be witches. Janet Horne (died 1727) was the last person to be legally executed for witchcraft in the British Isles. Horne and her daughter were arrested at Dornoch in Sutherland and imprisoned on the accusations of her neighbours.

A tragic, dramatic film, not necessarily easy to watch, about extreme injustice. That said, the torture scenes are shortened. We see the beginning of each horror and go straight to the end when the person is totally devastated and destroyed. It’s quite subtle that way. You might think that it’s very exaggerated and that no one could resist so much. And yet, we know that the worst tortures have existed and even evolved into even worse ones, sometimes. A good movie, but I won’t be watching it too often.

My Rating