Matt Smith's new movie debuts with 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating
Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark's upcoming film Starve Acre has debuted with a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score.
Premiered at this year's BFI London Film Festival, this folk horror from writer-director Daniel Kokotajlo (Apostasy) is set in rural Yorkshire, England, in the 1970s. There, the idyllic country life of couple Richard and Juliette takes a sinister turn when their son Owen (Arthur Shaw) starts acting out of character.
Richard, who has grown up on the titular farm he now lives in with his family, begins to explore the myths surrounding this remote place. In his research, blocked-out memories from his troubled childhood come to light, confirming Starve Acre may not be the best environment to raise a kid.
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While the film — an adaptation of the 2019 novel of the same name by Andrew Michael Hurley — doesn't have a wider release date just yet, it sure seems to have wowed critics who have managed to see it. It currently sits at a score of 100% out of 5 reviews on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, though this is likely to change once more reviews are in.
Both Clark and Smith have recently proved their horror acting skills in Saint Maud and Last Night in Soho respectively, bringing quietly unsettling undertones to this one too. As we await a release date, let's take a look at what critics had to say on Starve Acre, also starring Robert Emms, Erin Richards, Sean Gilder and Roger Barclay.
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"This 1970s-set folk horror, unnervingly scored by Matthew Herbert, unearths something primeval and toxic at the very roots of a once, and perhaps again, happy family."
"No one person in Starve Acre screams, speaks or behaves quite as people should, which is key to the film's baleful pull: Kokotajlo, at least, brings a fierce discipline to its disorder."
"Perfectionist direction and subtly unsettling mood give a bespoke edge to what would otherwise come perilously close to being a Gothic shaggy dog story (although a dog is not the beast at issue here)".
"Smith and Clark, at the head of a very capable supporting cast, keep the movie on an even dramatic keel, with intelligent, thought-through performances putting life back into some familiar tropes."
"This is a fantastically enigmatic horror film done beautifully well."
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