Written and Directed by: Brett Pierce, Drew T. Pierce
In The Wretched, 17-year-old Ben (John-Paul Howard) goes to stay with his father (Jamison Jones) in the small summer vacation town where he works. He notices their neighbor, Abbie (Zara Mahler), acting strangely, and soon discovers that she has been inhabited by a witch who preys on children. Along with his new friend Mallory (Piper Curda), Ben fights to defeat this ancient evil being.
Like many teen horror movies, The Wretched is pretty underwhelming. There’s nothing particularly inspired about the cinematography or direction, the characters feel like cliches, and melodramatic music nearly always plays right before the unimpressive jump scares (although there was one really good jump scare involving a baby toy that actually got me). The dialogue feels like most teen horror movie dialogue written between 1999 and now, although the actors mostly make it work.
That said, it’s not a bad movie. The special effects are pretty good, mostly practical and not over-reliant on CGI, and I really liked the creepy, saggy skin makeup for the witch. It was refreshing watching a movie with a unique antagonist (not that there aren’t other horror movies with witches, obviously, but this movie has its own interesting interpretation). As I mentioned before, the acting is pretty good, and there are some surprisingly talented kid actors in the cast. And the twist near the end genuinely surprised me without feeling like it was unearned; there’s some decent foreshadowing leading up to it.
While The Wretched isn’t an amazing horror film, it’s still entertaining enough, and at a little over an hour and a half run time, it’s a relatively quick, easy watch. If you like horror, are easily scared, and this happens to be on a streaming service you have, you might enjoy this movie.
Now playing at select Drive-In Theaters and Digital Platforms everywhere
Have you seen THE WRETCHED? Let us know what you think!
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FLIXCHATTER FILM BLOG 
Never heard of this movie before, just watched the trailer of it, looks okay I guess. I don’t really watch horror films that much anymore, the only horrors films I’ve seen recently were The Witch and Hereditary. I enjoyed both quite a bit but those were more dramas than horror and I don’t prefer it over jump scares and gore. I watched too much of the gore stuff back in my younger years. Lol.
“I don’t prefer it over jump scares and gore.” Oops! I meant I prefer drama horrors over gore and jump scares.
OOH, I love The Witch and Hereditary! I can definitely understand preferring dramatic horror over jump scares and gore. I don’t mind either depending on how they’re used, and I have my guilty pleasure horror movies that are chock-full of them, but ones that are completely reliant on those two things can be boring.