It might all centre around a cabin in the woods, but She Will is a very different kind of horror movie. Artist-turned-filmmaker Charlotte Colbert’s darkly witty first film takes the hackneyed setting and subsequently slathers on a range of different ideas around female ageing, witchcraft lore and child abuse, all in service of a #MeToo vengeance parable. Presented by giallo legend Dario Argento — She Will shares some of the master’s loopy logic and dream-like visuals — the film is perhaps over-busy, but is a thematically rich and brilliantly crafted fable that inexorably gets under the skin.
At its heart, She Will is a twisted character study of former child-star-turned-demanding-adult Veronica Ghent (Alice Krige). Sporting the trappings of an ageing diva — all turbans and furs — she travels to a rehabilitation retreat in the Scottish Highlands with compassionate nurse Desi (Kota Eberhardt, a modern presence in a film that defies obvious time-period signifiers). Arriving at their dilapidated chalet (Veronica drily observes the shack is “scout camp, with a touch of Guantanamo”), the pair are inducted into a group of eccentrics coralled by Tirador (Rupert Everett, having fun with mad hair and pearl earrings), who leads the residents in yoga and supposedly therapeutic art lessons involving drawing with charcoal. The black carbon is invested with the ashes of human remains as the retreat is on the site of centuries-old witch-burning, a narrative that begins to invest Veronica with a newfound strength and anger.
Colbert creates creepy, unsettling imagery and stretches of intense mood, all anchored by strong performances.
As it moves into darker areas, the film shares DNA with other recent flicks (Amulet, Saint Maud), and often feels like a litany of horror-film tropes (telekinesis, levitation). In-between the forest-bound malarkey is Veronica’s backstory concerning her abuse as a young performer at the hands of Malcolm McDowell’s auteur Eric Hathbourne (perhaps the most unlikely name for a vaunted filmmaker ever), sparked by Veronica’s most famous film being remade with a much younger actor.
While this strand feels on the nose, much of Colbert’s point-making and ambience is more difficult to pin down. She creates creepy, unsettling imagery (malevolent mud!) and stretches of intense mood (amplified by a great Clint Mansell score), all anchored by strong performances from the ever-reliable Krige and newcomer Eberhardt, who gradually create an affecting bond of sisterhood. She Will argues sometimes the only thing you need to repel centuries-old toxic masculinity is the solidarity of women.