Writer/director Dean Puckett’s The Severed Sun (U.K., 2024) is an engrossing work that takes folk horror elements and sets them in an ambiguous time period — the story could be taking place in the past but a couple of items suggest that it could also be set in an isolated rural area in the present day.
The Pastor (Toby Stephens) leads a village of followers who must adhere to his religious moral code. The upstanding reputations of the men of the village must be upheld, even if it means covering up or ignoring their physical and mental abuse toward family members. When the pastor’s daughter Magpie (Emma Appleton) decides to no longer take such abuse from her husband toward his sons and her, she kills him, and some of the other flock members are suspicious of her claims of the death being an accident. Magpie grows further away from the strict religious regiment demanded of the Pastor’s followers to the point of following an entirely different path that allows for liberation from his rules — one that involves a dark supernatural entity in the surrounding forest claiming the lives of those who do evil toward women and children in the Pastor’s fold.
Appleton gives a marvelous lead performance as a young woman breaking free of religious societal expectations and determined to live her life as she chooses, with Stephens also giving a powerful performance as a man willing to do whatever it takes to keep his followers under his strict control. The supporting cast members also give strong performances.
Puckett infuses the film with a heavy sense of dread, and cinematographer Ian Forbes captures the bleakness and the ecstasy on display wonderfully. Aficionados of folk horror films should find The Severed Sun to be a compelling slice of cinema.
The Severed Sun screened as part of Fantastic Fest, which ran September 19–26, 2024 in Austin,Texas. For more information, visit https://www.fantasticfest.com/.
