Inherit the Witch
It’s not all happy families for Cory and Fiona, bickering over inheritances following the death of their father Paul, but then it never had been since the joint fourteenth birthday party of Cory and his twin sister Jessie back in 1984, their creepy half-brother Rex taping everyone on his video camera while family friend Pamela tried to make them believe she was a witch performing blood rituals to bind him to her forever and dad just wanted to play Twister.
Thirty years on, the memories may have blurred but the resentments remain, Cory a bitter middle-aged man in a possessive on again / off again relationship with Lars and avoiding all but essential contact with what remains of his family, Jessie never mentioned, her name and memory buried years before, and hanger-on Pamela believed to be expecting to inherit Paul’s property though in truth her aim is for a greater prize, aided by Rex as her smirking, greasy-haired accomplice.
Billed as a psychological horror written and directed by Cradeaux Alexander who also stars as surly, selfish and generally unpleasant Cory, Inherit the Witch is a hellish reunion of squabbling siblings whose wealth afforded them significant advantage but neglected to include any hint of kindness, forgiveness and good manners, not the only sacrifices made to bring them their undeserved success which omitted any hint of serenity or happiness.
Fiona (Heather Cairns) in therapy, Rex (producer Rohan Quine) is as creepy as an adult as he was as a child, while Pamela has moved past her vampish youth (Elizabeth Arends) of uncomfortably inappropriate flirting with teenagers to a less domineering present (Imogen Smith), sitting down to afternoon tea and potions in her comfortable front room with the Grand Witch of the local coven of the New Forest, supposedly noted for its historic witchy activity.
Giving the impression of walking in on the latest episode of a long-running family feud daytime soap with no idea of who may or may not have done what or why, only that the hatred everyone expresses for each other is both justified and a symptom of their own self-loathing, all Inherit the Witch manifests is its inner bitch, lacking atmosphere, drama or believability, Rex’s basement filled with dead bodies which he has made no attempt to dispose of or conceal and Cory utterly oblivious and unsympathetic to the fact that his lover’s childhood trauma springs from growing up opposite a known murder house.
With the eighties flashback authentically capturing the fashions, fabrics and oily teen faces, the frequent split-screen is so poorly framed it seems to be a badly judged post-production decision, and with Rex painting his fingernails and snapping twigs to knock Fiona off her bicycle the supposedly sinister power of the witches is something the viewer is just expected to accept when it seems no more than spoiled children in dress-up playing games with all the unintended hilarious conviction of new-agers arguing over which of them is the reincarnation of Cleopatra.
Inherit the Witch will be available on digital download from Monday 23rd September
