Based on Britain’s most allegedly haunted house, The Banishing is a new chiller directed by Christopher Smith. Set in the 1930s, The Banishing attempts to blend supernatural horror with period drama, resulting in a confused genre mash-up that runs at a long 96 minutes. Smith, no stranger to horror, pumps the film full of atmosphere and complex ideas but never manages to find a distinct voice. Premiering on Shudder, this ghostly tale is The Conjuring with much of the zest left out.
Starring Jessica Brown Findlay of Downton Abbey fame, The Banishing depicts a reverend, his wife and their daughter moving into a strange manor during the 1930s. Soon after settling in, the family starts to experience strange occurrences. The daughter also exhibits some odd behavior, including having tea parties with ominous dolls. The matriarch of the family seeks answers and finds herself caught up in a mystery that threatens to destroy the very foundation of her family.
The biggest problem with the film is the fact that the most interesting character is Findlay’s Marianne. Yet, the focus is on her husband and his peers for an extended amount of time, causing a very muddled storyline. Marianne and her daughter Adelaide’s relationship is the most captivating aspect of the story, and it feels glossed over for most of the film. The plot set-up is mostly done through the priests and an occultist who knows of the manor’s horrors, which causes the movie to lose the potential it had to really delve deep into the characters inhabiting the house rather than jumping straight into exposition and backstory. There is a lot of time dedicated to the manor’s history, but there aren’t enough scares to justify the slow burn.
The film is fairly polished with some fine performances (especially from Findlay), but it lacks a certain entertainment factor even though it may contain all the right pieces. Technically it should work, but the set-up is just too generic and The Banishing doesn’t stand out against other movies in the haunted house subgenre. Sprinkled throughout are references to fascism and critiques of religion, but none of it is substantial enough to be memorable. The Banishing really should have focused on building its scares instead of shoving in all these conflicting ideas into an already bloated script.
The Banishing contains an unsettling atmosphere throughout, but nothing really builds onto that until the very end. The beginning of the film teases frightening hooded figures and a dreadful mood that gives the horror flick some great suspense for a bit. However, around the 50-minute mark, it becomes evident that nothing really frightening will occur, and the build-up was all for nothing. The focus is mostly on the story rather than effective scares, but the story is confusing and not entirely engaging. There are also some themes of time travel and doppelgangers involving a mirror world, but that is never fully explored, adding more unexplained questions to an already confusing plotline.
The Banishing has a standard haunted house movie set-up, and it easily could have leaned into that and became a successful addition to the subgenre. Instead, too much emphasis is placed on a muddled story, resulting in a bit of a messy film. The set design is effective, and the appearance of the main ghostly figure at the end is memorable, but as far as haunted house flicks go, The Banishing is a bland affair.
Directed by Christopher Smith and written by David Beton, Ray Bogdanovich, and Dean Lines, The Banishing stars Jessica Brown Findlay, John Heffernan, John Lynch, Sean Harris, and Anya McKenna-Bruce. The film is available to stream on April 15, exclusively on Shudder.
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