A Dark Song

“A determined young woman and a damaged occultist risk their lives and souls to perform a dangerous ritual that will grant them what they want.” – Imdb.

During the first half of the movie, I was thrilled to finally see a movie that doesn’t feature a ritual performed by four kids, a flashlight and a magic book that they found in the attic of their new house. The ritual performed in A Dark Song takes several months and begins by a spiritual and physical cleansing. The relationship between the woman and the occultist as well as the fantastic soundtrack contribute to build the heaviest and creepiest tension I’ve ever seen in a ritual movie.

As I was ready to see the ritual go wrong and end up in one of my creepiest TV moment, the movie flops. People with floured faces suddenly appear. They are supposed to be demons, unfortunately they feel more like actors from an opera of Maurice Béjart. And, when they finally manage to summon an angel, after 4 months of physical and psychological self-inflicted torture, this is what the woman asks as a favor (warning: spoiler):

The power of forgiveness.

At that moment, the movie was entirely screwed for me. What could have been one of the greatest ritual movies sadly turned into some crappy psychological drama.

With the tension that was built, I could have imagined the ritual going wrong. Since the woman had hidden her true intention to revenge on her kid’s murderers, a demon would have appeared and their immortal souls would have been damned to remain prisoners in the house, trapped with that evil presence for eternity.

Unlike the protagonist, I don’t have the power of forgiveness, so all I’ll give this movie is a two stars. Don’t watch it, please, it’ll only encourage these people making more dramas comouflaged into horror movies.