Watching Marcia Gay Harden embark on a savage killing spree was not on my cinematic bingo card for 2026. But that’s exactly what the veteran Oscar-winning actress does in Natasha Kermani’s horror film set in medieval England and serving as a loose remake of the 1964 Japanese classic Onibaba. It’s quite a sight to behold, as Harden, adopting a guttural growl that’s almost scarier than her character’s throat-slitting skills, delivers an entertainingly go-for-broke performance that would have fit in perfectly in a Hammer film from the 1960s.
Harden is the most entertaining thing about The Dreadful, which aims for classic folk horror but mostly feels tedious. The film set in the 15th century is certainly not short on atmosphere, thanks to its location shooting in Cornwall and enough fog permeating the proceedings to set off asthma attacks among vulnerable audience members. But the more it goes on, the more its diminishing returns set in.
The Dreadful
Heavy on atmosphere, light on chills.
Sophie Turner plays Anne, living in the countryside and struggling in poverty with her domineering mother-in-law Morwen (Harden). Years earlier, Anne’s husband Seamus (Laurence O’Fuarain) had gone off to fight in the War of the Roses alongside Anne’s childhood friend Jago (Kit Harington). Shortly after the film begins, Jago returns home from the war alone with the sad news that Seamus has been killed. It isn’t long before he and a reluctant Anne begin a romance, which, as anyone with a mother-in-law can tell you, is a recipe for trouble. Especially since the fearful Morwen desperately worries about what will become of her if the new lovers run off together.
And she’s not to be messed with, as evidenced by the gruesome slayings, which are also motivated by financial desperation. Morwen seems to have a particular hostility toward men of the cloth, several of whom meet unfortunate ends. Adding further to the overall tension is the looming presence of a murderous knight in full armor roaming the countryside. Not that armor is necessarily a protection against a crazed older woman with a knife and a grudge.
Writer-director Kermani, who previously demonstrated her horror bona-fides with Lucky and Abraham’s Boys, strains mightily but fails to match the brilliant eeriness of the Japanese film that served as her inspiration. The casting doesn’t help, with the fresh-faced Turner seeming far too healthy to be barely surviving in the countryside. And she has precious little romantic chemistry with her co-star Harington, although that’s perhaps understandable since they previously played siblings on Game of Thrones. (Indeed, in an interview Turner commented that they were “both retching” during their kissing scene.)
That wouldn’t matter so much if The Dreadful were more galvanizing. But its slow pacing and narrative patchiness make it a slog. And while the knight in armor is supposed to be a scarily ominous figure, it’s hard not to think that he wandered in from a Monty Python movie. The film’s amorphous turn into supernatural territory in the final act proves equally underwhelming. The filmmaker also resorts to that overused crutch of horror movies by which horrific events are revealed to be nightmares. A moratorium on that cliché is long overdue.
The Dreadful is the sort of film that prides itself on being a slow burn but ultimately more resembles a fizzle. Except for Marcia Gay Harden. By all means, give her character a sequel.
