The United States on the eve of its development is a topic that has been willingly taken up by Western horror writers in recent years. Now he has another, quite successful representative.
The end of the 19th century. The view from the windows of Lizzy and Isaac Macklin’s house is – as far as the eye can see –endless fields. The young couple is one of the pioneers who make the effort to settle in the still uninhabited territories of the USA. However, hard work, constant loneliness and one drama from the past cast a shadow over the initial idyll and the dream of building a new future. To make matters worse, isolated from civilization, Lizzy slowly begins to realize the presence of something else – ominous, falling down on her like a shroud, and sometimes brought on by violent gusts of wind. The husband who sets out on many-day trips does not believe in the woman’s relationship, and when another couple, apparently hiding some disturbing secret, finally moves into a barely outlined second house in the area, the woman only becomes convinced that something terrible is about to happen.
Source: hollywoodreporter.com
Slow burn in the wild west
Dressed in western robes and adorned with paranormal elements like The Witch , the relentlessly rising mood of paranoia and mutual distrust is one of the film’s strongest points. The narrative is slow and focuses on the characters’ evolving relationship. When inexplicable and more and more disturbing events begin to emerge, we observe the clash of their attitudes: the rational and the other, allowing the possibility of the existence of something unnamed. Conflicts, at first as subtle as erythema on the skin, heralding the appearance of an infection, must eventually develop into open wounds that will never heal.
Focusing on exploring the psychological aspects of the characters is a bull’s-eye for all fans of slow-burn movies , and the role of the moments that drive the action is paradoxically taken over by retrospectives that give the appropriate context to the whole. We discover them piece by piece, realizing the tragedies hidden behind the mask of apparent peace, which, despite the passage of time, do not let us forget about themselves. The prairie demons boldly take up the theme of motherhood, marital infidelity and the pain after loss, telling them from a perspective condemned to isolation and their own guesses as to the nature of the woman’s events. Is it a lot to bear? For less than an hour and a half of the screening, it seems so, but Teresa Sutherland’s scenario is, in most cases, victorious in this field.
Source: bloody-disgusting.com
With hope for the future
Long, inviting the viewer to wander into the darkness, shots, ominous soundtrack and economical, punctual performances by actors place Demons of the Prairie above most independent productions. The only real salt in the eye of the directorial full-length debut of Emma Tammi, who previously dealt with television documentaries and film production, are only those moments when it escalates. Subtle building of the atmosphere is then replaced by the classic jump-scare genre , and the sphere of guesswork and uncertainty is replaced by an overly obvious literalism.
Nevertheless, it is difficult not to define the director’s first romance with a feature film as promising, at least. The prairie demons are much more likely to use images than words, painting the viewer a vision of the complexity of human motivations in the face of events that are only subject to individual interpretation. This kind of director’s intuition makes us look forward to the next Tammi films.
