Wicked Witches (2018) Review

Wicked Witches (2018) Review

After being thrown out of his home by his wife for being promiscuous, Mark (Duncan Casey) finds himself back at Dumpling Farm, a place of youthful memories and parties, but things aren’t quite right. His old buddy Ian (Justin Marosa), who has never left the place, is possessed by a group demonic, flesh eating Witches. Using Ian and his farm, these beautiful Witches honey trap Mark and his friends to consume their souls.

Originally entitled The Witches of Dumpling Farm, Wicked Witches has its faults but the overall viewing experience is far better than one might anticipate from a British horror flick that apparently cost no more an estimated £15,000 to produce. The Pickering Brothers’ flick opens on a strong note, or rather notes, a number of them actually, with a wonderfully welcome ominous chunk of electronic music to set the scene nicely.  

There’s a decent hour’s worth of movie here that has been expanded to a short feature length running time, and in the process there’s some unnecessary padding (that party scene drags a bit) which affects the pace. Speaking of the central party scene I have some questions – there’s LOADS of motor vehicles parked up along a country road that raises no questions/eyebrows with any other drivers that might be passing, and what were the witches going to do with them, once they had their grisly way with the party revellers, so as not to raise suspicion locally?

At the party there are actually no more than a dozen people in attendance – despite the large number of cars parked outside the farmstead – and only a couple of those in attendance are women  – briefly glimpsed in the background making this party a very testosterone-heavy affair. Sure, this means it’s easier for the titular witches to pop along and ensnare the men as their prey but it doesn’t really play out common-sense-wise – there just WOULD be more women there.

Duncan Casey, as main character Mark, makes for a solid lead and it doesn’t hurt matters that he is very easy on the eye too. There are nods – conscious or otherwise –to Neil Marshall’s The Descent and towards Sam Raimi, especially his weakness for having severed heads flying around and sometimes taking time out to natter to our horrified lead.

Wicked Witches is well made and not only makes the most of its limited budget but exceeds what I would have considered achievable on such a meagre amount – those gore and make-up effects are terrific! So irrespective of the niggles mentioned in the previous couple of paragraphs, The Pickering Brothers have come up a corker with Wicked Witches, and I look forward to seeing what they put their collective talents to work on next.