Rent The Banishing (2020)

horror by numbers - The Banishing review by SG

Jessica Brown Findlay is great in this - but sadly the film is not.

all the tropes of a horror film appear in this so much its cliche OD.

jump scares CHECK

old fashioned music hall tunes CHECK

quirky zany characters CHECK

old time setting - 1950s CHECK

stern vicar v mild scared locals CHECK

not a good 91mins sadly, i was hoping for a good film and not watching Newsnight

Ponderous bore - The Banishing review by Alphaville

A disappointingly ponderous shaggy-dog haunted house story. Christopher Smith is one of the UK’s most stylish directors, but he can do nothing with this hoary old nonsense. There’s nothing in it we haven’t seen a thousand times before. Yep, things go bump in the night and our heroine goes exploring in the darkness with a torch.

Unlike the trailer, which revs things up with fast edits and exciting music, the film drags from one dull scene to another with barely a score for most of its length. Scary? No, just a drag from beginning to end. For Christopher Smith completists only.

Eccentric and unpredictable ... - The Banishing review by NP

From the director responsible for 2004’s wonderful ‘Creep’ Christopher Smith helms this period ghostly mystery horror. While there’s nothing particularly revolutionary about this, the slow-burner story – concerning a family’s deterioration after moving into a haunted house – is told effectively.

There are interesting subplots going on – failures on the part of the otherwise commendable Linus (John Heffernan) pave the way for his descent into instability. Adelaide (Anya McKenna-Bruce), the likeable young daughter is also affected, and we’re never quite sure about poor old Harry (Sean Harris, who was so good as Craig in ‘Creep’), a character rendered (unintentionally?) comical in red wig and music hall garb. Eccentricity and unpredictability within a straightforward plot keep things bubbling nicely.

While it never really achieves greatness, ‘The Banishing’ is a good, spooky way to spend 93 minutes – effective locations, atmospheric cinematography and a tremendous central performance from Jessica Brown Findlay as Marianne ensure a score of 7 out of 10 from me.