Pyewacket

It's the rare horror film that's actually more effective in psychological terms than in suspense ones.

As a psychodrama about a troubled mother and daughter, this movie is gripping from start to finish.

Pyewacket is a slow burn chiller that is all the more impressive for its subtlety.

A horror-lite film that barely increases the heart rate.

The heavy-handed score, narrow performances and weak dialogue all fail to justify a provocative ending that overturns the exorcising conventions of the genre.

...a decent (yet flawed) genre exercise.

MacDonald clearly wanted this to be a simple, heartfelt tale focusing on the disintegration of a mother/daughter bond, without too much background noise as a distraction. And he mostly succeeds in delivering just that.

The director is out for blood, and while this is a slow-burn affair that craftily bides its time until just the proper moment to unleash a flurry of dexterously ominous thrills, the craven wickedness of it all is portentously intoxicating.

It is a set-up as old as time, but this chilling, frequently terrifying work of horror manages to find fresh nightmare fuel in dark woods and incantations muttered in the moonlight.

A slow-burn chiller with an excellent sense of creepiness, "Pyewacket" handles evil and angst with tremendous skill.

While Pyewacket may not be perfect, it's still a promising little feature, proving its writer/director definitely has a distinct genre voice, as long as he learns to polish the more recognizable elements into something unique.

When it comes to horror movies that leave the biggest impression on me as a viewer, it's usually the films that tap into my emotional core that hit me the hardest, which is why Pyewacket hit me with such a ferocious gut punch.