Directed by Christopher Smith
Written by David Beton, Ray Bogdanovich, Dean Lines
Starring Jessica Brown Findlay, Sean Harris, John Lynch, John Heffernan, Anya McKenna-Bruce
Unrated - 1 hour 37 minutes
Streaming on Shudder starting April 15

by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer

Evidently, Borley Rectory, which was damaged in a fire and later demolished, was once considered the “most haunted house in England.” The person who deemed it the “most haunted” was psychic researcher Harry Price, who died in 1948. It’s the basis of the 2017 animated documentary Borley Rectory. The story also provides the base for Christopher Smith’s The Banishing, although this house doesn’t seem haunted in any way that we haven’t seen before, over, and over, and over. I thought at one point, they know we’ve seen movies, right? Creepy old dolls, reflections in mirrors that behave on their own, a ghost reaching out to a child. The Banishing wasn’t created in spite of the fact that these tropes exist, it exists because of them. It can coast by on the formula with little imagination or effort.

Set during World War II, The Banishing begins with an unexpected jolt of violence, then just remains dull for the remaining 90 minutes. A “man of the cloth” walks into a room and sees himself stabbing a woman to death. Malachi (Irish character actor John Lynch) is called to the scene. Some time later, a new family arrives at the cursed Morley Rectory. The family includes Linus (John Heffernan, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell), a vicar, wife Marianne (Jessica Brown Findlay, Black Mirror), and daughter Adelaide (Anya McKenna Bruce). Adelaide takes to creepy eyeless porcelain dolls, because I guess she doesn’t have any clean toys of her own. Meanwhile, Marianne starts having disturbing hallucinations. Disturbing to her, not to us. Jessica Brown Findlay, who I have only seen once before in an episode of Black Mirror, is convincing in a limited and underdeveloped role. I believe she is scared and concerned for her daughter, because that’s what the character is tasked to do. Little else.

Hefferman as Linus is the typical gaslighting husband, but in addition, he’s also withholding sex from his wife. Something to do with “sins of the flesh?” I don’t know, as soon as characters in films start reading from the bible I usually stop paying attention. Sean Harris (Mission Impossible: Fallout), wearing orange and gray hair, plays Harry Price, the local occultist who warns the family about the house. Yes, the same Harry Price. For a film that fictionalized everything else but kept the name of the researcher, why isn’t the film told from his point of view? The film never makes good use of its setting, either. Marianne mentions fascism and Hitler almost in passing. And we’re like “oh right, World War II.” Why even bother with the setting if it doesn’t tie into the horror somehow?

I struggled to stay engaged during The Banishing. The religious themes were weak and vague, the origin story of the ghosts was dull. It’s disappointing to see the performers trying to hard to make something of this limp, nothing story. The film only has one eerie scene, where duplicates of Marianne are lined up in a dark hallway, floating and stuck facing the walls. Why three people needed to come together to write this script escapes me. For a film that doesn’t have to worry about MPAA ratings, why doesn’t The Banishing just go for it? Go nuts, be violent, get weird. But The Banishing plays it safe, on autopilot from first scene to last.