‘The Haunting of Pendle Hill’ DVD Review
Stars: Lowri Watts-Joyce, Noel McAlley, Jeffrey Charles Richards, Mark Topping, Jimmy ‘The Bee’ Bennett, James Hamer-Morton, Nicolas Ball | Written and Directed by Richard John Taylor
Having grown up in the shadow of Pendle Hill, there’s no way I could not check out a horror film set in the very area we learnt about in school, did plays about as kids, and walked up as adults. The story of the Pendle Witches was a subject that was, when I was in junior school, drummed into children alongside stories about the village of Eyam (I don’t know why schools in the area were so obsessed with the plague town some 2 hours dove away), the fairies of Burnley and the lost villages of Singleton Thorpe and Kilgrimol.
But it’s the Pendle witches which are the most [in]famous of the local “legends”, so it’s surprising that – given British horror has mined a myriad of other English folklore – we haven’t had film after film about Elizabeth Southerns, Anne Whittle and the Pendle witch trials. So when a film on the subject does come along, as someone who feels a connection with the story, I have to see it for myself.
The Haunting of Pendle Hill opens in the 1600s and sees John Law (James Hamer-Morton) warned not to trek out into the woods of Pendle Hill by his friend Roger Nowell (Noel Brendan Mcalley). And he should have listened… Once in the woods Law meets a strange masked girl who seemingly ends his life. Then we flash-forward to the present, as a man (John Battersby) gets off a train and treks up Pendle Hill; only he apparently meets the very same masked girl. Failing to return home from his research trip to the infamous site of the Pendle witch trials, his brother Alfred (Nicolas Ball) tasks his daughter Matilda (Lowri Watts-Joyce) with travelling to Pendle from the States to find her father (whose ridiculous never named in the film, or on IMDb either).
And that’s how the film continues, flashing backward and forward from the 1600s and Roger Nowell’s search for his friend John Law and the present day as Matilda searches for her father. Well, I say searches, but Matilda spends a hell of a lot of time just sitting around talking to people – like her uncle’s friend Arthur (Jeffrey Charles Richards) and a couple of locals, Father Michael (Mark Topping) and PC Webster (Jimmy ‘The Bee’ Bennett).
What’s interesting is that, as someone who lived in the surrounding area, it looks like The Haunting of Pendle Hill was shot on locations NOT actually in the local area, almost as if written/director Richard John Taylor didn’t think the actual locations around Pendle Hill were quaint, scenic, or “old-timey” enough. Speaking of locations, the one thing you can say about The Haunting of Pendle Hill is that it at least looks good – from the drone shots of the barren countryside, to the ominously lit and bleakly colour-graded visuals, Richard John Taylor at least knows how to make his film LOOK spooky.
Good job too, as the film’s story and plotting are anything but. For The Haunting of Pendle Hill is less a horror (though there are some terrifying scenes strewn throughout) and more a lesson on the Pendle witches, as Matilda is shown around the area and given “lectures” by Arthur… Oh and spends half her time screaming out “Dad!” At the top of her lungs; which I very much doubt he’d ever hear in such a vast area! Oh, and she’s a bloody spoilt brat!
So we’re left with the footage set in the 1600s to make the film. And it does, to a point. As those who grew top learning about the subject, Roger Nowell was a witch hunter and John Law was a man whose family claimed he was injured by witches. Witches Nowell hunted down. Witches who, in The Haunting of Pendle Hill, Nowell fears are seeking revenge on him as he searches for Law along with his own daughter (also played by Lowri Watts-Joyce). I would much rather have seen MORE of that aspect of the film rather than the complaints and moans of Matilda as she searches for her father in the present.
Though to be fair the finale, set in the woods of Pendle Hill in the present day, does make for an interesting conclusion. On the one hand it feels like writer/director Richard John Taylor is about to throw out everything we’ve seen regarding the titular haunting of Pendle Hill and give the audience a cop-out ending. But then he doesn’t, instead he almost ties everything together giving us a tale of family lineage and a vengeful haunting that has lasted through the ages.
The Haunting of Pendle Hill is out now on DVD from High Fliers.
