Folk horror is a delicate ecosystem. One wrong move, and the mood collapses like a pagan ritual performed with the wrong brand of candles. Starve Acre, directed by Daniel Kokotajlo and based on Andrew Michael Hurley’s novel, aims for atmospheric, cerebral, earth-crusted dread. It wants to be unsettling. It wants to be mythic. It wants to haunt the viewer long after the credits roll.
Unfortunately, what it mostly does is test your patience harder than an undergrad philosophy major at a dinner party.
This is a film that contains 90 minutes of eerie moorland fog, grief-fueled madness, ghostly whistling, and one undead hare — and somehow still manages to feel like nothing much happens except emotional suffering and agricultural excavation. It’s like The Babadook decided to take a gap year on a Yorkshire farm.
This Family Needs Therapy, Not Archaeology
Our unhappy couple, Richard and Jules, live on a moor so bleak it makes Wuthering Heights look like a Sandals resort. Their young son Owen hears strange whistling from a supposed entity called Jack Grey. Anyone familiar with folk horror knows this is the moment to pack your bags, bless the house, and move inland. But Richard and Jules react like their child is merely reading too much creepypasta.
Richard, played by Matt Smith with the exhausted intensity of a man who has Googled “how to emotionally support my family” and clicked zero results, blames Gordon — the family friend/babysitter/storyteller. In Richard’s mind, Gordon is basically the Pied Piper of Traumatizing Bedtime Stories.
Jules, meanwhile, is tired, stressed, and generally functioning at the level of a drained phone battery: she can power a few scenes, but after that she’s shutting down.
A School Field Day From Hell
Nothing says British folk horror like a pastoral event going horribly wrong. During school sports day, screams pierce the air. People crowd around. A little girl’s pony has been blinded — violently. Owen is sitting nearby with blood on his hands and a sharpened stick, looking like the world’s youngest future BBC crime drama suspect.
It’s chilling. It’s disturbing. It’s also the first and last time the movie hints at genuine shock.
From here, the pacing slows to an arthritic crawl.
Tragedy Strikes, and the Film Immediately Applies a 20-Pound Weight to Its Own Chest
Owen dies suddenly from an asthma attack — a moment that should be devastating but is staged with the emotional subtlety of a medical pamphlet. Jules collapses into grief so deep she practically sinks through the mattress. Richard spirals into guilt, confusion, and eventually the worst hobby imaginable: amateur backyard archaeology.
This is the point in the film where any sensible person would choose grief counseling, marriage therapy, or at the very least a long vacation somewhere far from whispering moors. Instead, Richard sits up late reading his abusive father’s journal like it’s a bedtime story, then grabs a shovel and starts digging for spiritual portals.
Men will literally excavate ancient tree roots instead of going to therapy.
The Undead Hare: A Horror Icon for People Who Found Watership Down “Too Lighthearted”
Richard uncovers the bones of a hare — the least threatening animal capable of starring in horror — and brings them home. Then weird gunk begins growing on the bones, like nature itself is experiencing a fungal relapse. Slowly, the hare resurrects itself, which would be terrifying if it didn’t look like something you could buy for £29.99 at a Halloween craft fair.
Yet Jules becomes obsessed with it. She cuddles it. She nurses it. She treats it like her new child.
This is the moment where the movie shifts from “slow-burn psychological folk dread” to “Lifetime movie about a woman adopting a woodland creature and losing her mind.”
Murder, Madness, and Folklore, But Somehow Still Boring
As Richard digs up what appears to be the roots of a massive supernatural tree, his colleague shows up to check on him. Jules, by now off the deep end in a way that would make Ari Aster proud, stabs the man to death to protect her undead woodland baby.
If this sounds dramatic, trust me — in the film it unfolds with the emotional energy of filing your taxes.
Meanwhile, Harrie, Jules’s sister, attempts to intervene with the same effectiveness as a wet napkin. She is quickly murdered by Richard, who has now entered the “sure, let’s ruin our entire lives for one regrown rabbit” phase.
Watching this couple descend into violence is undeniably grim, but it’s also bafflingly anticlimactic. Imagine a brutal domestic tragedy unfolding in slow motion while someone plays sad accordion music in the background.
Jack Grey: A Cryptid With Great Branding But Zero Screen Time
The folkloric figure Jack Grey supposedly haunts the moors, whispers to children, and roots himself in the family’s trauma. In a stronger film, he would be a chilling presence — a rural spirit echoing centuries of folklore.
But here, Jack Grey feels more like a vague rumor than a supernatural force. He’s mentioned a lot, but the film gives us vague atmospheric shots instead of anything concrete. It’s hard to fear a creature whose main power appears to be mood-setting.
The Ending: Disturbing, Yes. Effective? Debatable.
By the end, Richard and Jules stand over Harrie’s body cooing at the hare like the world’s most dysfunctional parents. It’s meant to be shocking — a culmination of grief, madness, folklore, and moral decay.
Instead, the final scene feels like the movie is whispering,
“See? Isn’t this disturbing? Isn’t this symbolic? Aren’t you haunted now?”
No, Starve Acre. I’m just confused.
Performances: Good Actors Trapped in a Sundae of Slow-Paced Misery
Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark are phenomenal actors, which makes it all the more painful watching them wander through scenes with expressions that scream, “I am doing my best, but please someone give me a flashback, a monologue, anything.”
They deliver excellent performances, but even the best actors can’t resuscitate a script that hinges on one magical rabbit and an inconsistent folklore threat.
Final Verdict
Starve Acre desperately wants to be a haunting, slow-burn masterpiece of British folk horror. Instead, it often feels like being trapped in an overlong, bleak pastoral poem where the metaphors keep tripping over tree roots.
It’s atmospheric, yes. Moody, yes. Beautifully shot? Absolutely.
But atmospheric doesn’t equal engaging. Slow-burn doesn’t equal depth. Folk horror doesn’t equal “watch people stare silently at dirt for several minutes.”
In the end, Starve Acre feels like a movie that mistakes bleakness for brilliance. It tries to merge grief, folklore, trauma, and resurrection into a cohesive whole — but instead produces a grim, muddy stew of ideas held together by an undead hare that deserved better special effects.
If you love slow arthouse folk horror, misty moors, and stories where nothing happens for long stretches until suddenly three people die, this might be your next favorite film.
For everyone else?
Let’s just say Starve Acre proves one thing:
Even in horror, sometimes dead plots are better.
