Matt Smith & Morfydd Clark's Folklore Tale 'Starve Acre' Goes Gray with Grief

Based on the well-received chiller novel by Andrew Michael Hurley, Starve Acre is a moody story of haunting folklore and grief upturning the land we stand on. Set in an ambiguous late-20th-century moment in the Yorkshire Dales, academic Richard (Matt Smith) and his wife Juliette (Morfydd Clark) struggle to look after their young son Owen (Arthur Shaw). After tragedy strikes, Richard and Juliette’s grief splinters them in their home, Starve Acre, a property tied up in alluring folklore of offerings and rebirth.

While it’s certainly nice to see Smith and Clark – who are currently leading the two biggest fantasy shows on TV – tackle a much more grounded fantastical tale, writer-director Daniel Kokotajlo can’t provide Hurley’s text with any arresting images or sustained dread, so the film never digs beneath the surface of its folk horror ideas.

There seems to be a modern trend in folk horror films to make their stories of earthy, violent, and wyrd faerytales as austere and drab as possible. Think dark, leaden skies, harsh wind rasping through the speakers, and grief-stricken faces who make a foolhardy attempt to stave off the creeping tendrils of an evil, disturbed natural order – choices like these do their small part in creating a provocative and vibrant subgenre duller than it should be.