“The Severed Sun” (2024) is another all sizzle, no steak entry in folk horror. Set in an unknown time and place, a rural church community has The Pastor (Toby Stephens), a practical, controlling man who uses religion to shore up his power, as its head, but his daughter, Margaret Edwards, nicknamed Magpie, (Emma Appleton) has begun to live as she sees fit. Though she just wants to be left alone, her distance threatens his rule. He has the community on his side, but their abusive backlash against her does not stick. Is she in league with The Beast (James Swanton) or are they all just mad? Why choose.
“The Severed Sun” does not fail because of the acting. Everyone is British so they could read the Yellow Pages, and it would be compelling. As Magpie, Appleton gives strong Lauren Cohan (Maggie from “The Walking Dead”) energy. She stands firm in the face of intimidation and abuse—bowed but never broken. During her first act of rebellion, she has a vision of The Beast, which looks like an animated, three-dimensional pitch-black shadow with horns as if it was cut from a starless sky. The dialogue implies that she has psychic powers to see. It is an interesting concept that goes nowhere. Imagine a daughter with powers, and a father who does not believe in anything except the strength in his body and powerful voice. It is a theme that remains unexplored like fruit left to rot when it is supposed to be consumed.
If “The Severed Sun” exists, it may just be to give Stephens a chance to appear shirtless and have a few homoerotic scenes, but there are not nearly enough of those to carry the movie. Stephens as The Pastor is the broadest, most good-looking man in the community so it makes sense that everyone decides to follow him. His contemporaries look like contestants in a Louis C.K. lookalike contest metaphorically and physically. The Pastor is a simple math equation to solve so if anyone other than Stephens was playing him, the archetype would bore anyone else to sleep, but his performance makes him a wild card, a ruthless, emotionless man.
The younger generation falls in two categories. David (Lewis Gribben) looks like he could be an understudy for Ewan MacGregor in “Trainspotting” and not in a good way. He is one of the beneficiaries of Magpie’s rebellion. There is not a scene to show that he is Team Beast or what that entails, but it is kind of obvious. Then there is John (Barney Harris), the Pastor’s toady who has all the homoerotic scenes and fails to temper the Pastor’s iron rule. He gets an oneiric dream sequence that feels like a cut scene if “The Blair Witch Project” (1999) ever had a prequel or “The Witch” (2015) had a sequel. Despite the battle in his heart, he is staunchly anti-Beast.
Andrea Eastchurch (Jodhi May, who works with Stephens in “The Lost in Space” reboot) is probably the most interesting character because she is that bitch from work who makes everything her business and is a pot stirrer but cannot do anything effective when needed. She is the worst and a great villain. Apparently, she is popular and whips everyone into a frenzy. It is disappointing that “The Severed Sun” did not do something more interesting with her character because her power seems to rival The Pastor’s. She is a woman who would never challenge a man’s power, but it does not mean there are no other ways that she would find a way to flex her manipulative muscle. Instead, she just ends up being the head of a mob.
The community is not differentiated. There is a lot of talk about how they need to be together as if something happened that threatened their existence, but it does not feel credible. It is the general concept of survival, but it does not feel palpable here though Andrea growls about doing things even if you do not want to do them, and John has a similar sense of resigned duty. It would have been helpful if “The Severed Sun” showed how the work got harder and established the flow of the community before wreaking havoc.
In the end, “The Severed Sun” just falls into a predictable pattern. A woman who dares to stand up to bad men and live against the grain bears the brunt of the community’s ire, not the male evildoers. I was not a fan of “The Devil’s Bath” (2024), but at least a true account inspired it. Sadly, it is a classic story, but throwing the Beast into the mix does not make it standout. The Beast is real, not a figment of the community’s imagination, and The Beast is a part of nature, but there is not much else to it. It causes a fever in anyone who touches the viscous substance that spreads from its person. It is always nice to see an old actor get work again, and it looks like the black stuff from “The X-Files” and “Supernatural” finally made it to the big screen, but it is not as thick and animated as it used to be. We’re all getting older, Black Goo. Nothing to be ashamed of!
If “The Severed Sun” is worth watching, the cinematography and direction are perfect, which will be what tempts everyone to watch it in the first place. Writer and director Dean Puckett is making his feature directorial debut, and before the black-and-white Blair Witch sequence, the series of long shots and the innate, evocative mystery of the landscape will make you believe that there will be a big payoff. Cinematographer Ian Forbes makes every scene feel clear with natural light. The score is also a standout from Unknown Horrors. It sounds synthetic and futuristic, which is a contrast to the bucolic surroundings. It makes The Beast seem more alien than demonic. The location, Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, England feels like a separate character with its stone structures and mostly treeless horizons.
Puckett expanded his 2018 twelve-minute short film, “The Sermon,” which is a far more satisfying horror rebellion story against religious oppression. It is set in more contemporary times and has a sapphic, not homoerotic, undercurrent with far less diffuse abuse and a higher body count. It is confounding why Plunkett did not just expand a solid story. The short provides the origin story for the Beast, which is not spelled out in the feature. The pastor’s daughter sees her rebellion through her father’s eyes as if she has become infected with the world’s “river of decay.” So, The Beast is not real, but a psychological manifestation of religious oppression, which arises even in a brutal act of empowerment and revenge.
“The Severed Sun” is all atmosphere, but ultimately unsatisfying. If you are a fan of the cast or location, then maybe you will not be disappointed, but enemies of oppressive systems deserve better than this been-there, done-that portrait of female rage against the patriarchy. Good content is overflowing, and time is short so it feels a shame to waste any time on uneven films that fall flat before reaching the finish line.
