A Haunting in Cawdor *** (2015, Cary Elwes, Shelby Young, Michael Welch) – Movie Review

Shelby Young stars as a young woman serving her jail sentence at a work release programme with other parolees in the US Midwest at the dilapidated Cawdor Barn Theatre, run by creepy, secretive failed Broadway director Lawrence O’Neil (Cary Elwes).

A force of evil is unleashed when Vivian views an old taped stage production of Macbeth as she is tortured by the play’s infamous curse. Michael Welch (Mike Newton in The Twilight Saga) plays outcast Roddy, who joins Vivian in desperately trying to discover who the supernatural killer on the tape is before she becomes the next victim.

Writer-director Phil Wurtzel’s minor but not insignificant horror thriller is a tense and enterprising tale of psychological terror, inspired by Macbeth. An creative Wurtzel wrote the screenplay while working on a documentary on the reopening of the actual Barn Theatre in Augusta, Michigan, the oldest US summer stock theatre, where the movie was filmed. The barn itself proves quite a star of the movie, while Young and Welch are very effective, and the well-cast, experienced Elwes is outstanding.

There’s plenty of low-rent theatre atmosphere, a creepy mood, and a brisk, professional approach to a low-budget thriller. Wurtzel’s characters, dialogue and plotting are fine, and we get a good Shakespeare lesson and a wake-up call on the value of theatre too. If ever there’s a good karma horror movie this is it!

It’s rather in the same vein as the recent The Gallows (2015), only a whole lot better.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/