On July 26, 2024, Brainstorm Media releases ‘Starve Acre’, which has earned rave reviews from critics, holding fresh at 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the film a family confronts dark and malevolent forces after moving to the countryside. The ensemble cast includes Matt Smith, Morfydd Clark, Erin Richards, and Robert Emms. Read the full review round-up below.
Guy Lodge of Variety notes, “No one person in “Starve Acre” screams, speaks or behaves quite as people should, which is key to the film’s baleful pull: Kokotajlo, at least, brings a fierce discipline to its disorder.” Continuing, “You can smell what’s happening in “Starve Acre” before you puzzle the rest of it out. The grassy, peaty dampness of its rural Yorkshire setting seems to hit the olfactory glands without any scratch-and-sniff assistance, only intensifying as the film unearths its literally deep-buried secrets. Daniel Kokotajlo‘s impressive second feature unfolds in a vein of British folk horror that has been popular of late — with films from Ben Wheatley’s “A Field in England” to Mark Jenkins’s “Enys Men” all tapping into that retro “Wicker Man” eeriness — but rarely with such rattling sensory specificity or formal refinement. Starring Morfydd Clark and Matt Smith as former townies unprepared for the full burden of lore they inherit with their desolate farmhouse, it’s a tale of quite outlandish fantastical leaps, grounded by the chills it also finds in common weather and wildlife.”
Peg Aloi of Arts Fuse writes, “Adapted from Andrew Michael Hurley’s critically acclaimed novel, Starve Acre is an unsettling folk horror tale set in ’70s rural England. Matt Smith (The Crown) and Morfydd Clark (Saint Maud) are Richard and Juliette, a young couple living in a remote country house where Richard works as an archeologist examining local relics. Setting up tents and digging in cold wet weather occupies Richard’s time after a tragic loss, while Juliette retreats to her bed. Soon after Juliette’s sister comes for a visit, Richard discovers a set of animal bones and puts them aside. When the bones exhibit strange, impossible changes, he becomes obsessed. There’s a vibe reminiscent of the Icelandic film Lamb here: both films posit worlds of humans and animals coinciding with intimate strangeness. Directed by Daniel Kokotajlo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Hurley, Starve Acre is a satisfying addition to the growing crop of English folk horror narratives that venture past the edges of magic realism, entering into a wild realm that lies just beyond our waking vision.”
Peter Bradshaw of Guardian praises the film, stating, “Smith and Clark, at the head of a very capable supporting cast, keep the movie on an even dramatic keel, with intelligent, thought-through performances putting life back into some familiar tropes.”
Jonathan Romney of Screen International says, “Perfectionist direction and subtly unsettling mood give a bespoke edge to what would otherwise come perilously close to being a Gothic shaggy dog story (although a dog is not the beast at issue here).” Adding, “The less revealed about Starve Acre’s plot, the better – especially as, well-honed special effects notwithstanding, we eventually enter territory that might get incredulous guffaws from viewers of a genre-sceptical disposition. But with this type of narrative, accepting the fantastic is as essential leap of faith for the audience as it is for the characters, whose understanding of reality will be transformed in the course of events – sometimes with shocking abruptness. Suffice to say, Kokotajlo keeps us guessing about what will happen around the family home, especially given the couple’s interaction with outsiders, including neighbour Gordon (Sean Gilder), Richard’s fellow academic Steven (Robert Emms, returning from Apostasy), a matronly local woman with a penchant for candlelit healing (Melanie Kilburn), and Juliette’s sister Harrie (a nicely perplexed Erin Richards).”
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