Valley of the Horntak review

By Simon Thompson

Director/co-writer Maxwell Morro’s Valley Of The Horntak is a stylish, yet sluggish folk-horror that despite showing signs of initial promise, completely stumbles in the second and third acts. This is a shame, because for the first fifteen minutes or so I was intrigued, only for Morro and co-writer Erik Weed’s script to pull every single fatigued folk horror cliché out of the bag, completely dissipating my interest as a result. 

Valley Of The Horntak, follows Julian (Michael G Kehoe) who is forced to return to the mysterious cult in a rural community led by Gordon (Vernon Wells) that he had fled to find a missing boy. If Julian doesn’t find the missing child, then it directly threatens his eldest son Thomas (William Mann) who goes with Julian on the trip because he wants to find out more about his family history. What follows is Thomas being caught in the cult’s web, while simultaneously being forced to reckon with his own family history. 

Filmed on location in Southern Kentucky, cinematographer Lucas D Miller extracts every ounce of smoky beauty from the area, creating an atmospheric backdrop in the process. As a director Morro knows how to build tension and make you feel uneasy, with the intro sequence in particular showcasing these abilities in full. 

Vernon Wells as Gordon the sinister cult leader steals the show from everybody else to an almost embarrassing extent. This is because Gordon is by far the most interesting character in Morro and Weed’s script, but also because Vernon Wells is the best actor in the cast by a country mile and dominates every scene that he’s in. Wells is so good in this movie, that to paraphrase Homer Simpson, whenever he’s not on screen every other character should be asking where’s Vernon Wells. 

As pretty as this movie is to look at, after the first act it falls apart because it delves into the family history of a not particularly interesting group of characters, and because said family history recycles every folk horror trope that you could possibly think of in under five minutes if Judge Dredd burst into the room and demanded that you do so at gunpoint. 

Overall, the first fifteen minutes of this movie is good enough for you to treat that as a separate short film and not bother with the rest. In a perverse kind of a way I’d rather the first fifteen minutes be as poor as the rest of it, instead of teasing me with the tantalising prospect of an hour and twenty six minutes of consistent quality.