Dark and the Wicked, The

The Dark and the Wicked

Credits
Title:	The Dark and the Wicked
Directed by:	Bryan Bertino
Written by:	Bryan Bertino
Produced by:	Bruce Cummings; Brian Dalton; Thomas Giamboi; Milan Chakraborty; Carissa Buffel; Mike Scannell; James Short; John Short; Jeff Stevens; Adrienne Biddle; Bryan Bertino
Music by:	Tom Schraeder
Cinematography:	Tristan Nyby
Edited by:	William Boodell; Zachary Weintraub
Production
Production:	Unbroken Pictures Inwood Road Films Shotgun Shack Pictures Traveling Picture Show Company
Distributors:	Shudder RLJE Films RLJ Entertainment
Released:	April 16th, 2020
Rating:	Unrated
Running time:	95 min.
Country:	USA
Language:	English
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The Dark and the Wicked is an American independent feature film of the supernatural thriller subgenre of horror, with an emphasis on trauma horror. It was written and directed by Bryan Bertino. It was produced by Unbroken Pictures, the Traveling Picture Show Company and Shotgun Shack Pictures in association with Inwood Road Films. It premiered in the United States at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 16th, 2020. It was screened at Beyond Fest on October 6th, 2020. It was screened at the Chicago International Film Festival on October 14th, 2020.

Plot[]

Texas - The Dark and the Wicked — Sundown in Texas.

David Straker is an elderly, invalid Texas sheep farmer who is on his deathbed. His wife Virginia is unable to emotionally cope with his current state and pending death. Their children Louise and Michael come to help out, but Virginia doesn't want them there, and tells them to go home. Despite this, they stay the evening and express their concerns over their mother's mental health, as well as their father's physical health. A hospice nurse comes to the farmhouse every day to offer assistance.

That evening, after Michael and Louise have retired to their rooms, Victoria stands at the kitchen sink cutting up onions and carrots on a cutting board. When the vegetables run out, she begins cutting up her own fingers. Afterward, she goes out to the sheep barn and hangs herself. Michael and Louise discover the bloody finger remnants in the kitchen sink and their mother's body in the barn the following morning.

The following day, they visit the morgue to inspect their mother's body. They discover that she had been keeping a journal filled with religious connotations and her fear of some invisible dark menace. The family nurse confirms that she heard Virginia speaking to the open air, as if someone else were in the room.

Between their mothers' death and their burial, Louise and Michael meet an aging cowhand named Charlie, and a priest named Father Thorne. Michael is an Athiest, and asserts that his mother was also, so he does not understand the priest's presence. Later that evening, both Michael and Louise spot Father Thorne outside their house with a strange demonic visage upon his face.

Charlie the ranch hand is in his trailer and hallucinates seeing Louise brandishing a knife. She begins cutting away at her body and slices her own throat. Charlie then places the barrel of a shotgun into his mouth and pulls the trigger.

Louise is subsequently unable to reach Charlie by phone, unaware that he is dead. Louise calls the phone number that Father Thorne gave her to ask why he visited the farm the night prior. The man who answers claims to have never met her and says that he lives in Chicago and has never been to Texas. Worried for their father's safety, the siblings summon a doctor for a house call and request that he be moved to a hospital. The doctor determines that their father's health is grave, and that he is on his deathbed. He tells the siblings he cannot relocate him to a hospital, as moving him could result in him dying en route.

Charlie - The Dark and the Wicked — Charlie, the ranch hand.

On the farm, Louise and Michael find that their large herd of goats have all been brutally killed. The two start a bonfire to dispose of the numerous animal carcasses. That night, Michael is approached in the barn by an apparition of his nude mother, who disappears as she approaches him. Later, while Louise lies in bed beside her father, she has a nightmare in which the entity attempts to possess her, but she manages to resist it. She then witnesses her father levitating against the ceiling.

In the morning, Charlie's granddaughter arrives at the farm. She indicates that she had met Louise once before when she was a little girl. She informs Louise that Charlie took his own life two days prior. The girl's forlorn demeanor soon turns malevolent, and a sadistic sneer grows across her face. Louise realizes it is in fact the entity taking the shape of Charlie's granddaughter. She too disappears before Louise's eyes.

The hospice nurse arrives moments later to care for Louise and Michael's father. Meanwhile, Louise finds that Michael has fled the farm to return to his wife and daughters, leaving her behind. Michael calls Louise from his cell phone while on the road and tells her that she too should leave. Moments later, the nurse, possessed by the entity, begins stabbing herself in the face with a pair of sewing needles. She also stabs at Louise before stabbing herself in the eyes, killing herself.

Michael arrives at his home and finds the dead bodies of his daughters and wife in the kitchen, in what appears to have been a murder–suicide. The daughters are found with their throats slit, and a bloody knife lies by the body of their mother. Unable to deal with the sudden shock and grief, Michael takes out his own knife and cuts his own throat. This is all a hallucination however, presumably perpetuated by the evil entity. Moments later, Michael's wife and daughters return home from an outing. Seein his dead body on the floor, his wife lets out a scream.

Back at the farm, Louise regains consciousness at nightfall and finds that her father is dying. Moments after he issues his final breath, the demon then turns his attention towards Louise and claims his final victim.

Cast[]

Actor

Role

Marin Ireland

Louise Straker

Michael Abbott, Jr.

Michael Straker

Julie Oliver-Touchstone

Virginia Straker

Nurse

Charlie

David Straker

Priest

Charles Jonathan Trott

The Wicked

Young girl

Doctor

Becky

Funeral director

Notes & Trivia[]

The Dark and the Wicked redirects to this page.
There are a total of twelve credited cast members in this film.
Production on The Dark and the Wicked commenced in April, 2019. The movie was shot in Granbury, Texas.
The Dark and the Wicked was released on Blu-ray by RLJ Entertainment on December 15th, 2020.
As of September, 2023, The Dark and the Wicked has a Starmeter rating of 6.1 out of 10 on the Internet Movie Database, based on more than 20,000 user votes.
On the movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, The Dark and the Wicked has a Tomatometer score of 91% based on 108 approved critic reviews. It has 98 positive reviews and 10 negative reviews. The movie has an audience score of 63% based on more than 500 verified user ratings.
On Letterboxd, The Dark and the Wicked has a weighted average of 3.06 out of 5 based on 28,678 user ratings.
The central setting for this film is the U.S. state of Texas in the modern era.
Director and screenwriter Bryan Bertino is also known for crafting the 2008 psycho-thriller The Strangers.
2020 seems to be the year for cutting off fingers, don't it? Not only does Virginia Straker cut off her own fingers while chopping up vegetables while being manipulated by a malevolent spirit, but over in Nicolas Pesce's reboot of The Grudge, actress Lin Shaye's character, Faith Matheson, does the exact same damn thing! She too is being influenced by an evil spirit.

Dark and the Wicked, The

Contents

Plot[]

Cast[]

Notes & Trivia[]

Recommendations[]

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