The Wretched: Half-Baked Lore Dressed Up In Superb Practical Effects
Eight long years after their debut feature, Deadheads, writer/directors Ben and Drew Pierce (better known as the Pierce Brothers) have returned with The Wretched. This 80s-infused horror film could almost be the next Fright Night, but it drops the ball by favoring neat visuals over a coherent story. One thing’s for sure, the effects are certainly something special.
A defiant teenage boy (John-Paul Howard), struggling with his parent's imminent divorce, faces off with a thousand year-old witch, who is living beneath the skin of and posing as the woman next door.
If you put Rear Window (or the lesser Disturbia), The Goonies, Fright Night (or minor imitators like Summer of 84), The VVitch, and everything Spielberg in a blender, you’d have something close to The Wretched — close being the key word. While the Pierce Brothers have no doubt selected some high-quality ingredients to bake with, they unfortunately didn’t leave everything in the oven long enough. As intriguing (and accurate) as the above comparison may be, the fact remains that The Wretched can’t stand tall against the many superior films it pulls from and references, leaving behind a film whose whole is lesser than the sum of its parts. A lot — if not all — of these problems could have been smoothed over with a few more drafts and tweaks.
Take the main character, Ben (played by John-Paul Howard), for example. Other than a cast on his arm (which we’re given 0 background on and doesn’t factor into the plot at all), all we know is he’s a rebellious teen whose parents are going through a rocky patch, which isn’t much. Really, this fits just about any teenager, but it’s more generic than it is universal. Ben is given so little characterization that it starts to feel like the the Pierce Brothers weren’t interested in developing him into a full rounded character. And it’s this kind of problem that seeps its way into all aspects of The Wretched’s narrative.
Two-dimensional characters can often be overlooked if the film finds ways to compensate, but the one place a horror film needs to have all of their ducks in a row is the lore. The Wretched does some interesting stuff in that regard (it’s thoroughly skin-crawling witch design being a prime example), but it doesn’t adequately set things up or explain the mythology of its central wretch for things to fully gel. For instance, the film opens up “35 years ago” where we see the creepy creature capturing some tasty children, but the witch is supposedly 1000 years old, so why are we seeing this particular instance? Our main character also somehow finds a website with everything he needs to know about the witch, which is also head-scratching since the powers the creature possesses seems to leave behind no survivors. Where do these stories come from?!
The Pierce Brothers’ father worked on the original Evil Dead, which twists their gorey tendencies into the right kind of focus. The film’s practical effects by Makeup Effects Supervisor Erik Porn do most of the heavy lifting, and they’re able to carry the film a long way. The Wretched is full of old school body horror, and it’s flawlessly executed and hardly touched up by CG. If you’re a gorehound, needless to say, there’s a lot to keep you satiated in that respect. Seeing a long-fingered creature crawl out of disemboweled deers and ripping out of human bodies is quite the sight, if that’s what you’re into.
The Pierce Brothers prove that they may be ready to take on a studio project, provided they don’t pen the script. They showcase their ability to give a film the right kind of look, but story-wise, things were developed or clear enough to resonate the way they should. This should absolutely be the next Fright Night, but it just can’t hit the mark. The Wretched may come out like a doughy mess, but it’s not without its minor nuances or entertaining pockets — and it’s definitely held up by the quality and ingenuity of its creature effects.
Recommendation: If you love horror, The Wretched’s visual effects alone are enough to merit a watch; however, just know that if you value story over visuals, you’re in for a fair bit of disappointment.
Rating: 2.5 witch-inhabited deer carcasses outta 5.
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