Director: Ruth Paxton
Writer: Justin Bull (Screenplay)
Starring: Sienna Guillory, Jessica Alexander, Ruby Stokes, Lindsay Duncan, Kaine Zajaz, Richard Keep
Plot: A widowed mother is radically tested when her teenage daughter insists a supernatural experience has left her body in service to a higher power.
Tagline – Family or Famine
Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: A Banquet starts when Holly’s (Guillory) husband passes away, leaving her with their daughters Betsey (Alexander) and Isabelle (Stokes) to raise. Betsey the elder starts going through a mystery illness, which sees her unable to eat, without any medical explanation.
As Betsey believes she has a connection to a higher power, she becomes more distant from her family, as her mother looks to learn the truth about what is causing the transformation in her.
Thoughts on A Banquet
Thoughts – A Banquet is a horror thriller that will focus on a family that are going through grief, when something changes in the daughter, we see how life will be viewed differently for the family, as they learn their place on the earth. Where this story can fall short, is with the pacing, which goes slow, without showing enough of the changes going on, with too many close up of eating. The film does want to give us a shock with certain decisions, but these twists don’t feel like they are earnt with enough building up around the events we see. The performances are fine, with the characters creating a distant feel about them, which will help add plenty to the uncertainty going on.
Signature Entertainment presents A Banquet in Cinemas & Digital Platforms 11th March
Final Thoughts – A Banquet is looking for the shock value, while failing to capture us in the story.