- Director: Lucinda Lewis
- Writer: Lucinda Lewis
- Stars: David Rose, Lucinda Lewis
REVIEW
Having the ability to create a dread filled atmosphere in a short film is an impressive feat, you have to hit the right tone from the start and hold it for the entire time. Marrying that dread with folk horror, a genre built on the slow burn of the horror, writer, director and star Lucinda Lewis has created a very good short that oozes atmosphere and hits all the marks for a folk horror film.
The Bothy on the Cold Mòr charts the descent of a lonely man as he drifts into madness through the thoughts of a local missing woman. Barely a word (if any at all), is spoken in the short, with the man (Rose) seemingly obsessed with the missing woman (Lewis).
Lewis effectively plays with the audience giving us reason to both sympathise with the man but at the same time not fully trust him either. Using the shadows and the light in a way that conveys the ever-creeping madness coming for the man, with glimpses of the woman, all in black standing outside his house. There is a scene of the man tending to his livestock and the colour becomes so washed out that it looks like he is the only inhabitant on a distant planet. Which lends itself to the isolation of the man, driving home the loneliness of a man plagued with thoughts about a missing woman that he may or may not have been involved with.
Lewis knows her folk horror and gets the pacing of the film spot on. The slow camera movements and handheld shots really help create a full experience, all backed by some excellent music from Gravelle. The Bothy on the Cold Mòr is definitely worth checking out.
You can check out the film here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w09997xM5A
Ryan Morrissey-Smith
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