The Pearl Comb (15)
Director: Ali Cook
Screenplay: Ali Cook
Starring: Beatie Edney, Ali Cook, Simon Armstrong
Running time: 21 minutes
Review: RJ Bland
In the UK, we have a rich history of folk horror features, going back to iconic films such as The Wicker Man (1973) and Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971). After a few decades of relative dormancy, the last ten years or so have produced a remarkable array of fresh British interpretations of this strange little subgenre. Alex Garland’s Men (2022) is perhaps the best known but honourable mentions include In the Earth (2021), Enys Men (2022) and The Feast (2021). Internationally, there have also been a few that have combined folk with a period setting. Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2011), The Devil’s Bath (2024) and Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse (2017) have all done so with great effect and it’s no great surprise really. It’s a combination that works so well together. It becomes easier to suspend disbelief regarding legend and mythology when one’s sense of ‘reality’ is already unsettled by a setting in time that feels inherently unfamiliar. Ali Cook’s 20-minute short film The Pearl Comb is the latest to place popular folklore against a historic backdrop.
Set in 1893 along a rugged Cornish coastline, The Pearl Comb opens with a fisherman’s wife, Betty Lutey (Beatie Edney), welcoming a smartly dressed man into her home. The man is a doctor and, as it happens, a distant relative of Betty’s. He has come to discuss something she has recently done - something that has made headlines. It is nothing sinister; in fact, quite the opposite. She has apparently ‘cured’ a boy suffering from tuberculosis, a remarkable feat in the late 19th century. He asks what treatments she employed to produce such a medical miracle, but she tells him there was no conventional ‘treatment’. “It’s a gift,” she insists. Naturally, the doctor is sceptical, so Betty recounts how she came to possess this unusual healing ability. And it’s a story as potentially perilous as it is compelling…
First off, making a film about that features a mythological creature is an ambitious venture for any first-time filmmaker, especially when they intend to show them front and centre for parts of it. It’s doubly challenging when it’s a mermaid; an icon of film and literature for centuries. Forget The Little Mermaid though, for the siren at the centre of this story is not an affable aquatic friend. No, she’s much more in keeping with the early iterations of this insidious folkloric sea creature. And vitally, director Ali Cook brings her to life with style. She’s as beautiful and alluring as the songs she sings but as deadly as the ocean itself and she’s beautifully realised on screen. Get the mermaid wrong here and everything else is sort of irrelevant. But thankfully that’s not the case – which is just as well because there’s a lot of other things to admire here too.
While the plot of this intriguing little story is both clever and engaging, it is the technical execution that truly stands out. Cook presents a potent blend of sweeping landscapes and intimate close-ups, all crafted with a muted, desaturated gloom that feels unmistakably Victorian. And it all feels so effortlessly assured and patient too. There’s an attention to detail with the set dressing and dialogue that feels almost Robert Eggers-ish too. Amid the fantastical elements, the central trio anchor the narrative with grounded performances. Period pieces can sometimes slip into theatricality, but the portrayals by Beatie Edney and Simon Armstrong keep everything rooted in a suitably sombre reality. A neat twist at the end provides a satisfying final flourish.
Cook is reportedly developing another folk-horror feature—so watch this space.
Wake (15)
Director: Sean Carter
Screenplay: Sean Carter
Starring: K. Steele, Millie Sanders, Catherine McCafferty
Running time: 12 minutes
Review: RJ Bland
Just imagining certain scenarios and situations can instantly turn your blood cold. Waking up to find you’ve been buried alive. I mean, that’s a universal one, surely? Being stranded in the middle of the ocean and not knowing what lurks in the murky depths below (Sharks? Giant squid?!). Or maybe free climbing 1000ft up the side of a mountain. Oh Christ, I think I just broke out in a cold sweat. Well, here’s another one. Picture being stuck in a morgue during a power cut. Yeah, that one’s not conjuring up pleasant images I bet. This particular scenario is famously played out in Andre Ovredal’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) – a fantastically taut and tense film. Titles such as The Possession of Hannah Grace (2018) and the Danish serial killer flick Nightwatch (1994) also utilise this setting to great effect. Sean Carter’s Wake, a 12-minute short is the latest to get in on the act.
A hurricane is tearing through an unnamed U.S. city, and residents are being evacuated before the storm reaches its peak. Nurses Tina (K Steele) and Emma (Milly Sanders) have one final task before they can leave: secure the newly arrived body of a young woman (Catherine McCafferty) in the downstairs morgue before flooding becomes a risk. Several factors, however, make an already tense situation even more precarious. The storm has knocked out the building’s power, forcing them to navigate only by phone light and faint emergency illumination. Tina is unable to reach her elderly mother as the evacuation unfolds. But perhaps most significantly, there’s something up with the corpse that has just been brought in. Emma explains that the body was discovered beside the marsh at a local cemetery. When they pull back the sheet, they uncover the woman bound and tied, a large wooden cross driven into her chest. It becomes clear that their final shift will not unfold as expected.
Although there will be obvious comparisons to the Jane Doe, Wake proves there’s still more terror to be mined from having a couple of people locked in a dark building with a bunch of cadavers. Whilst you wouldn’t want to spend any longer in the company of a corpse than you’d need to, the dead are not supposed to pose any danger to the living. To threaten otherwise throws the rulebook out of the window and puts you in a place where your long-held sense of the natural order can collapse in on itself. And that’s exactly where Tina finds herself.
This really is a wonderfully taut little horror that has you squirming on the edge of your seat from the very beginning. Carter isn’t afraid to cloak each frame in near-total darkness, and cinematographer David Khayznikov uses what little light there is to superbly heighten the sense of unseen horrors lurking just out of sight. Wake is careful in how it paces things too. Even though it knows time is short, it’s perfectly happy to gradually crank up the suspense without blowing its load too soon, choosing instead to revel in dread inducing anticipation rather than cheap shocks and gore (although we do admittedly get a couple of decent jolts!). Production values across the board are remarkably strong - from the evocative sound design to the unsettling practical effects. None of this would land quite so effectively without compelling performances at the centre, and K Steele delivers a gripping turn as the increasingly distressed protagonist, her escalating panic palpable and propulsive.
In short, Wake is an impressively crafted and gripping chiller that displays some real talent both behind and in front of the camera and a perfect watch if you fancy a small but potent dose of frights.
