A grieving father, a podcaster and a pair of psychics search the
Yorkshire moors for the body of a boy abducted 25 years earlier.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Chris Cronin
Starring: Sophia La Porta, David Edward-Robertson, Bernard Hill, Elizabeth Dormer-Phillips
Director Chris Cronin has received acclaim for a series
of shorts that display an ability to tell a story in a concise running
time. At almost two hours, his feature debut The Moor (scripted by Paul Thomas) could use some of that
economy. There's a thin line between slow burn storytelling and ponderous
pacing, and The Moor is too often guilty of the latter.
Cronin reminds us of his background in shorts with a gripping opening
one-shot sequence that functions as a complete horror story in its own
right. In 1996, a young girl, Claire (Billie Suggett), coerces
her younger friend Danny (Dexter Sol Ansell) into joining her
in a plot to steal sweets from a corner shop in their small Yorkshire
village. The plan is for Danny to distract the shopkeeper by claiming he's
lost his dad while Claire loads up on sherbet, with the two meeting in an
alley round the corner. After Danny fails to appear, Claire returns to the
shop where the shopkeeper assures her Danny was taken away by his dad;
except it wasn't his father at all but the man responsible for a series of
child abductions, and presumably murders, across the region that
summer.
25 years later and Claire (Sophia La Porta) is now a struggling
podcaster racked with guilt over her role in Danny's still unsolved
disappearance. The suspected killer was only convicted of one murder, as
the other bodies were never found, and is set to be released in the coming
weeks. Determined to find his son's body and ensure the killer remains
behind bars, Danny's father Bill (David Edward-Robertson)
approaches Claire and asks for her help in publicising his search through
her podcast. Claire insists that she only covers entertainment rather than
true crime, but Bill's desperation and her own remorse convince her to
agree to help the grieving father.
Thanks to the advice of a dowser, Alex (Mark Peachey), and his
psychic teenage daughter Ellie (Elizabeth Dormer-Phillips), Bill is
convinced he knows the rough area where the bodies are buried. Guided by a
ranger (Vicki Hackett), Bill, Claire, Alex and Ellie undertake
a series of expeditions that leads them deeper and deeper into the
foreboding expanse of the moors, where they uncover physical evidence and
have supernatural experiences.
The Yorkshire moors have long proven fertile ground for dark tales,
exploited by storytellers as disparate as Emily Bronte and John Landis.
Who can forget Brian Glover's plea for the naive protagonists of An American Werewolf in London to "Stay off the moors!"? In reality of course mention of the moors
raises the spectre of the infamous Moors murders of the 1960s. Shrouded in
fog, it's hard to think of a more fitting setting for a horror movie, so
it's no surprise to find that The Moor is at its most engaging when it drops its protagonists in the
titular tundra.
Cronin does a fine job of economically mythologising the land in a way
that means even those viewers unfamiliar with its place in fiction and
true crime will immediately understand the dark hold it has over Claire.
On first arrival Cronin focusses on Claire's feet as she steps from the
tarmac of the road onto the grassy plain, establishing that she has
crossed over into a realm she may never truly be able to return from. He
makes striking use of that classic horror filmmaker's tool - the fog
machine - coating the land in a thick mist that keeps the viewer squinting
for shadows and silhouettes on the murky horizon. The appearance of
neolithic stones and creepy sheep adds a folk-horror element.
The Moor suffers from serious pacing issues however, thanks largely to its
structure, which sees our small band of searchers make a series of
expeditions, the fruitless nature of which can prove as frustrating for
the viewer as for the luckless protagonists; imagine how The Blair Witch Project might play if the camera crew didn't get lost in the woods but were
able to return to town every time dusk began settling in.
Speaking of Blair Witch, the addition of Claire's chest-mounted GoPro camera allows the film to
take on a found footage aesthetic in some key moments. We're also treated
to snippets of talking heads (including the great Bernard Hill as a mournful cop involved in the original case) from the
documentary Claire is piecing together. I couldn't help but wonder if it
might have been a wiser choice to have the entire movie play out through a
combination of Claire's interviews and her GoPro footage. The climax
relies on the latter and finally delivers the sort of thrills we've waited
close to two hours for as the influence of Lucio Fulci rises from the bog.
It plays like a late attempt to send horror fans away happy, but most of
the movie will likely appeal more to true crime obsessives than those
seeking paranormal thrills.
