STACK #198 Apr 2021

FEATURE FILM

writing such confronting material, knowing that she would, in turn, have to enact it on screen. “She had a writer-hat on and wasn’t thinking about what would come later,” Marshall offers. “I think if she had thought about it, she would have been like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to learn how to ride a horse, or I have to be strapped to this thing all day, every

STACK caught up with British director Neil Marshall to discuss The Reckoning , his new period drama exploring the horrors of the English witch hunts during the Great Plague. Words Glenn Cochrane WITCHERY

day, and it’s going to be painful.’” When it came to depicting the graphic nature of the 17th century witch hunts, Marshall reflects, “I never wanted to make a torture- porn film. I’m not interested in that as a genre. I’m not interested in watching it or making it, but I knew I had to deal with torture in this film because that was the historical fact. And we’re dealing with the fact that these poor, mostly, women had to endure all of this and most of them died because of it.

• The Reckoning is out on April 7

“So, I had to be true to the subject matter but at the same time not dwell on it. My thought was that I imply a lot of what’s happening – the implication is more than horrific.”

T he Reckoning follows an innocent young widow (Charlotte Kirk) who is falsely accused of witchcraft after rejecting her landlord’s advances, and subsequently faces persecution by England’s most ruthless witch hunter (Sean Pertwee). “When I was developing this script, it was a choice between setting it in this period [mid-1600s] or earlier during the more medieval Black Death kind of times [1300s], and I felt like that had been covered a lot more in movies, whereas this period had not,” director Neil Marshall tells STACK . “There are only a handful of movies that are set around this period just after the British civil war. The plague hits and the year after this was the Great Fire of London. It was a rich time to explore, and visually, it’s really interesting.” One of the more striking elements of the period were the plague doctors and their nightmarish, long-billed masks. “The beaks were stuffed with various herbs and things like that. They believed the smell of these herbs would protect them

from the plague,” Marshall explains. “They thought that infection was carried in smell. So, it’s kind of symbolic that we’re wearing masks because of plague now.” Adding to The Reckoning ’s already disturbing take on the barbaric witch trials, Marshall paints the screen with a blend of historically accurate atrocities as well as a nightmarish splash of fantasy. When asked about some of his biggest influences, one particularly notorious film comes to mind: the documentary Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages . “Some of the imagery in that film is absolutely astonishing,” he says, “but I actually made a point not to watch things like Witchfinder General again in the lead up to doing the film. I didn’t want to have that fresh in my mind when I made this movie… I was trying to conjure up original stuff as much as possible.” The Reckoning ’s themes and depictions of torture are, indeed, unsettling. Lead actress Charlotte Kirk, who also served as co-writer, had us ask Marshall how she felt when

MASTEROFHORROR Neil Marshall

P ulling up a seat at the exclusive Masters of Horror table alongside such terror titans as John Carpenter ( Halloween ), John Landis ( An American Werewolf in London ), Tobe Hooper ( The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ) and Joe Dante ( The Howling ), Neil Marshall has not only earned his place amongst these legends, he’s also proven to be one of the most eclectic members. Stampeding his way onto the horror scene in 2002 with his runaway hit Dog Soldiers , he has since forged a name for himself with genre-bending fireballs like the claustrophobic chiller The Descent (2005), the action-thriller Doomsday (2008), and the historical war epic Centurion (2010). What sets Marshall apart from many of his contemporaries is his diversity of storytelling; no two films of his are alike, and that’s the way he likes it. “I don't want to repeat myself. I also don't want to repeat stuff that's out there already. I love finding stories within history. That's the challenge for me. “I never wanted to be seen purely as a horror director. Action is the thing that I love doing most. I always try to get some action into whatever I'm doing because I like directing the sh–t out of that stuff. It's fun.”

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