Char is a teenage girl, who ought to be out having fun with her friends. But she has none. Instead she is regularly picked on and bullied. Her family, particularly her Grandma, well, they've always been a bit weird. There is a dark secret in the families past no one is talking about. Her Mum is bedridden, rarely well enough to go out, and appears to be on the verge of having a mental breakdown. Then she goes missing. Her Uncle is found in suspicious circumstances overdosed on medication her Mum should have been taking. Her Mum returns, but it no longer feels like this is really her and Char doesn't feel safe in the house. Her new found friend Georgie tells her she should leave. Her Grandma gives her a protective amulet she's made. The next morning her Grandma is found murdered in her armchair.
This is a brilliantly executed piece of psychological horror, placed in a context of gritty realism. Giving you a vivid sense of the genuine difficulties of living in a house where someone, who you love, is mentally losing it. Even though it has this subtext of folk horror underlying at all times, it inhabits a recognisable run down, impoverished urban landscape. This is a first film for Kate Dolan who wrote and directed it, and it shows a huge sensitivity for her characters predicament and making the horror subtext as real as those very ordinary grubby circumstances.
CARROT REVIEW - 5/8
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