31 Days of Halloween: Wicked Rectory

Borley Rectory (2017)
****** (6 out of 10 stars)
Director: Ashley Thorpe
Producer: Tom Atkinson
Starring: Julian Sands, Reece Shearsmith, Richard Strange, Nicholas Vince

Come closer, dear reader, and let me whisper a tale. It was in the witching hour, that velvet expanse of time when the world sleeps and shadows grow long, that I found myself adrift in the digital sea, searching for some unseen shore. My expectations were a flickering candle, easily extinguished, when a curious title drifted into view: Borley Rectory. Was it a film? A documentary? The lines were blurred, as if drawn in fog, and I, intrigued by the ambiguity, pressed onward.

What a curious journey it was. This was not a film in the conventional sense, but rather a phantasmagoria, an animated tapestry woven from old photographs and spectral performances. Each frame is a work of art, a digital painting that brings England’s most haunted house back from its ashen grave. And guiding me through this crumbling manse, who else but the mellifluous Julian Sands, his voice a silken thread leading through a labyrinth of memory and dread. His narration alone was worth the price of admission, a perfect marriage of eerie elegance and scholarly gravity.

The film drifts through the history of the rectory, introducing us to the spectral players and the mortal investigators, like the famed Harry Price, who dared to scrutinize them. It is atmospheric, delightfully quirky, and at times, genuinely unsettling. The very air of the piece is thick with the dust of forgotten things and the chill of a presence unseen. The visual style is so unique, so utterly committed to its ghostly aesthetic, that I found myself completely captivated by its strange, hypnotic spell.

And yet, no haunting is without its imperfections. There was a moment, a conversation between specters perhaps, where the dialogue became a muddled whisper, lost to the ether. The words were difficult to grasp, not from complexity, but from a simple lack of clarity, as if the ghosts themselves were reluctant to give up their secrets. Furthermore, as the tale drew to its close, the screen was flooded with text, a cascade of words detailing the fates of the characters. It was a deluge of information, perhaps more text than had been spoken in the entire affair, which felt a cumbersome end to such a visual and ethereal experience.

These are but minor grievances in an otherwise fascinating venture. Borley Rectory is a strange, beautiful, and haunting creation, a midnight discovery that lingers like a half-remembered dream. It will not be for everyone, certainly not for those who crave the jump and the jolt. But for those of us who appreciate a story steeped in atmosphere, who find beauty in the decay, and who enjoy a tale told with artistic courage… this is a most rewarding visit.