Director: Scott Vickers
Writer: Scott Vickers (Screenplay)
Starring: Charlie Blackwood, Julie Hannan, Scott Vickers, Alan Cuthbert, Briony Monroe, Theron Ferguson
Plot: An expecting Mother (Rachel) and husband (Matt) crash their car in the countryside and are offered shelter by a farmer and his wife. Rachel soon realizes the farmer’s children are in fact stolen. Just as they try to escape from the farm Rachel goes into labor…..
Tagline – She Wants The Life You Give
Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Matriarch starts when Rachel (Blackwood) and Matt (Vickers) are on a journey when they are involved in an accident, a heavily pregnant Rachel does need to return home, the couple find a small farm where Agnes (Hannan), Bob (Cuthbert) David (Ferguson) and Luke (Murphy) offer them shelter for the night.
When the couple start to believe the family aren’t as welcoming as they first thought, they try to escape, but the family has already set eyes on the baby to add to their family, another boy is their plan from God.
Thoughts on Matriarch
Characters – Rachel is the heavily pregnant woman traveling with her husband when they are involved in an accident, she isn’t comfortable with the farmhouse they find themselves in, she sees her baby taken from her and left to find her own way to fight back to survive. Matt the husband that is left helpless and left for dead by the farmers, he will do anything to protect his wife and baby. Agnes runs the family, she is a God worshiping woman who has complete control over her ‘family’ she is looking to add to it, with Rachel’s baby being her plan. She wants more boys with her two adopted children doing a lot of the dirty work for her. Bob is the partner of Agnes, he tries to keep people away, but will get the job done when it comes to keeping Agnes happy.
Performances – When it comes to the performances, we don’t get the strongest, this is held up with the reaction moments in the film, which always looks more stop start, rather than a natural flow.
Story – The story follows a married couple expecting their first child, who break down and seek help, only to find the farm they turn to is after something more from them. This does turn into the story idea of people in need of help turning to a remote residence and things not going the way they had planned, needing to escape the terrors within the walls. While the religious side of the story does make for the terror, we never seem to get to the full conviction of everything happening in the farm, we also don’t get as dark as you would have imagined it could in this world, with an ending you can see coming a mile off.
Horror – The horror is more about the situation Rachel is put in, having her baby taken and trapped in a world where she can’t escape.
Settings – The film does use the remote farm setting to show how the family are off the grid and could get away with what they have for so long.
Scene of the Movie – The escape.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The attacks don’t always look great.
Final Thoughts – Matriarch is an easy watch horror that doesn’t hit the heights of the films in the same subject matter.