Gwen

(DVD, 2/25/24, horror/drama)) Quick shot: A mother and her two daughters struggle to survive, isolated, in the English countryside. "Gwen" is an atmospheric, slow-burn tense movie. It does a great job establishing the isolation and struggle of a mother and her two daughters while their father is away fighting in a war. However, after it was over I found that I had more questions than the film gave me answers. The atmosphere was visually stunning but it burned a little too slow for my taste.

A woman and her two daughters struggle to survive in rural Wales. Cholera is killing the community while the family sees their farm falling apart as the animals start dying in a mysterious way. "Gwen" is a gothic horror movie with an impressive setting and impeccable performances. The movie excels in creating an unsettling ambiguity: is the family's misfortune caused by supernatural forces or is it all driven by the inevitable change of industrial revolution?

Set in a farming community in Wales, a young girl named Gwen, tries to keep things running when her mother begins showing symptoms of a strange illness. This is a very well made folk horror film where you're never quite sure where it's headed. I liked the performances from the cast and the mystery surrounding the story which kept me engaged throughout.

Is it a wolf in sheeps clothing or a sheep in wolves clothing? An unrelentingly bleak drama couched in the tropes and themes of horror movies, telling the story of a Welsh farming family attempting to resist the exploitation and violence of a local mine owner in the context of the industrial revolution. The striking landscape (can I see Cadair Idris in the background?) is as much of a character as any of the leads themselves. I'm not usually one to shy away from bleakness in films but must confess the unrelentingness of it in this did get to me a little.

It's not a horror movie. It is a sad story of how people lived in the Scottland/England area in the 1800s. Very sad. Gwen is a lovely girl living the horrors of a hard life back then.

I would hardly consider this a horror film. It works well as a period piece, but that’s about it. Very bleak.

This movie was very pretty, but the visuals cannot compensate for the complete lack of plot. I get that it's a commentary on capitalism (blah blah blah), but it offers nothing new that hasn't already been said a million times. And it could have been said as "capitalism sucks" instead of wasting an hour and a half of my time with a million slow-mo shots so that it could say that it's "atmospheric". I've not reviewed a movie on this site in a long time, but I needed to give my warning on this one.

Bleak, mature, tragic fairy tale.

'Gwen' has very lofty ambitions, but it just barely falls short. It has got great atmosphere and a stellar breakout performance from Eleanor Worthington-Cox, but it can't seem to reach the same heights as its peers. It just feels like there is something missing; something that could have led its admittedly unnerving tension to a grander crescendo. It's hardly bad, but it wasn't quite able to make it past merely okay.

It burns up and finally ends as in a farce!