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Folk Horror Lacking Real Emotion – The Severed Sun (Fantastic Fest 2024)

A scene from The Severed Sun showing a woman wearing a white apron over a green dress covered in blood

The Severed Sun, which premiered at , had all the ingredients of a feminist folk horror film, but it is missing the secret ingredient that a cook knows you need – love. It is a soulless film that regurgitates the best parts of other movies and feeds it back to the audience. It's as if writer/director Dean Puckett fed “Write me a feminist folk horror film with witches” into Chat GPT and built a movie around it. But conversations had after the movie ended made it clear that audiences can tell when something is lacking real emotion. 

The film starts off interestingly enough. It centres on a devout religious countryside community ruled by a strict pastor (Toby Stephens). When the pastor's daughter, Magpie (Emma Appleton), murders her abusive husband it sends the town into a frenzy. The pastor tries to reconcile his moral responsibilities with that of a father all while murders continue to happen. It has the pieces that fans of The Witch, Midsommar, or films like it have, yet it is so toothless and surface-level that you are left feeling empty and wanting more.

It also speaks to some upsetting trends in film. One is that filmmakers and studios think there is a formula for a successful film. They make a grab bag of themes and plots that have succeeded in the past and assume we will gobble it up like greedy children. The other is cisgender men repeatedly writing stories about women's trauma, especially in regard to depictions of rape and incest. Recent festival releases like An Taibhse (The Ghost), Shelby Oaks, and Traumatika all share this in common. These issues are treated as plot devices as opposed to being handled with the care and sensitivity they deserve. Plenty of cis male directors have been able to handle the subject matter well, but the use of it as a way to follow the horror “trends” is problematic. 

This is not to say that The Severed Sun did not have moments of decent filmmaking. Some shots look great while others, like the dream sequences, have a found footage look that does not fit with the rural setting. The score is eerie and unsettling but not enough to help the other crimes the movie commits. The simplistic creature design is effective but there is something uncanny about it, either in relation to cheap effects or the way it was shot. There are some impressive performances from the cast, even though they are not given much to work off of. Our feminist heroine Magpie has no real depth to her character, making it hard to relate to the struggles she faces. Without a solid character to work off of, many of the actors lean on overacting to compensate for lack of emotion. It is unfortunate that a film you want to enjoy can leave you feeling this empty.

The Severed Sun had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2024 on Sunday, September 22.