Ok. This is about to be a recap in a recap since we’re starting off with a history
lesson word crawl. I thought I was sitting down to watch Star Wars for a minute. This is 2020’s
The Curse of Agatha Earnshaw. Spoiler alert. While I might give
you my opinion on the film, that’s no substitute for watching it for yourself.
Links to the film are in the description. Ok. So a quick summary of the word crawl.
It talks about how Irish people settled in North America, and even though the world kept turning
and growing, those Irish settlers kept to the old ways. Later on, pestilence spread through
the village except for at Agatha Earnshaw’s farmstead. She gave birth to a baby on the
night of an eclipse, but she kept the baby secret since they thought she was a witch.
And there you go. A couple hundred years of backstory summed up into a few sentences.
The year is 1973, and we open up on a village that looks like it’s stuck in the 18th century.
Just outside of town, we see Lochlan walking up to Agatha with a box. As he greets her, he tries to
trade goods with her so he can feed his family, but she warns him away, saying that she can’t
spare anything. As he hints to the fact that she’s miles away from the nearest person, he goes on his
way, and Agatha goes back to the barn where she warns Audrey to stay hidden from everyone.
The next day, Agatha gets ready to head into town, and she hides Audrey in a box on her cart.
Once in town, a funeral is going on at the church, and we find out just
how hard things are for the town. Colm has just buried his son due to the pestilence,
and he confronts Agatha when he sees her pulling her cart full of crops through town. Soon the
priest intervenes, and Agatha goes on her way. Then we hop straight into a scene that looks like
some sort of pagan ritual really is to credit for the bounty that Agatha has.
It’s kind of hard to think anything else when you see a girl dressed in white lying on a table,
and a group of women surrounding her after mixing a bowl of blood. So I can’t really
blame the townspeople for questioning the status quo here. I mean, they are literally
draining Audrey’s blood and drinking it! As the ritual continues, Audrey seems to go
into a trance as all of the coven members begin to have smoke come out with every breath. Eventually,
Audrey wakes up lying in a circle of branches in the woods. After she gains her bearings,
Audrey speaks to the high priestess about how Colm struck Agatha in the town,
and the priestess tells Audrey that she should make him pay but to keep it secret.
Another thing. If you suspect someone of performing witchcraft in a religious town,
WHY WOULD YOU ATTACK THEM?! DO NOT INVOKE THE WRATH OF A WITCH!!
The high priestess tells her to sneak into Colm’s house and get something of his son’s.
On the way home, Agatha lets Audrey out of the box so she can go to the bathroom,
but soon, Mr. Buckley happens upon them. As a means to convince him not to tell the whole
town about Audrey, Agatha offers him the entire bounty that she has on her cart. Eventually,
he finally decides to only take a few items. If he actually follows through with keeping his
mouth shut with only getting a loaf of bread and a bottle of whatever,
he’ll be my favorite character in the end. I know it’s a big if for him to keep his mouth
shut, but you never know. A little optimism can be a good thing in these kinds of films.
After he leaves, Agatha calls for Audrey to come back from the bathroom,
but she finds out that she has disappeared. Audrey makes her way to Colm’s farmstead, and
she sneaks up behind him as he drinks his sorrows away in the field. She acts as though she’s hurt,
and Colm carries her inside. After he lies her down on a daybed, he goes to check on his wife,
but she simply ignores him out of her grief. When he comes back to check on Audrey,
she’s awake, and the two of them start to ask questions of each other. She finds out more about
Colm’s dead son, but she doesn’t give up any more information other than her first name. Eventually,
Colm gives up trying to find out about her, and they say goodnight to each other.
This is probably one of the most trusting people ever in this kind of situation. He’s drinking in
a field, a strange girl appears and collapses in the field, he just brings her in their home,
and he tells her all this information before just leaving her in his home.
This is what you get! That’s why you don’t let strange women in your home!
Audrey walks all the way back to the farmstead where Agatha is waiting for her on the porch.
After Agatha accuses her of going to Colm’s house, Audrey rushes inside and leaves Agatha
standing there wondering what she’s done. Meanwhile, Colm calls the town doctor to their
home to check on Bridget, and he tells them the wonderful news. Bridget is with child, and that’s
what he attributes her unusual cravings to. I’m sorry, but how many women out there have eaten
dirt when they were pregnant? Honestly! What’s the weirdest craving you had, because I don’t remember
ever hearing about pregnant women eating dirt. After the doctor leaves, Bridget tries to explain
to Colm that something is wrong with this pregnancy, but he simply reassures her that
everything will be fine. Back at Agatha’s house, the two of them are doing the dishes, and Audrey
slices a gash in Agatha’s hand. When she licks up the blood, Agatha leaves her there.
At Colm’s house, he has Mr. Buckley come out to investigate a gnarly sight with some of his
livestock looking like they’ve been eaten from the inside out. Even when he bites into an apple,
we see that the apple is actually rotten at its core while maggots crawl out after a bite. Then
we see how Lochlan has to put down his prized horse because of the same pestilence.
When Mr. Buckley sits down to eat dinner with his family, his wife begins to question where
he got the food, but she puts on a brave face for their daughter.
Something about watching that little girl smile after every bite is unsettling
since we know that they’re eating a rotten horse stew. But just when I thought that was weird…
You really get lost in the idea that this town is some old timey colonial town. So seeing that plane
fly by just raises the question of why don’t they just hop over to another town? Are they
so dedicated to the idea of staying true to their roots? Or is there some sort of curse that keeps
them from venturing to far outside of town? After the service, Mr. Buckley’s wife expresses
concerns she has for her husband, and the priest sits next to him to talk about what’s bothering
him. After speaking for a moment, Mr. Buckley tells him about running into Agatha and Audrey
the other day, and he swears that he can’t go on living like he had been before. He swears
that Audrey is the most beautiful creature he’s ever laid eyes on, and he can’t forget her.
Back at the farmstead, Agatha seems to be paranoid about every little sound she hears,
and Audrey asks her what she would do if it was anything more than
the wind. Agatha promises her that it wouldn’t be like the day Colm struck her at the funeral,
and things would go very differently. Somehow, Agatha picks up that Audrey has done something
terrible, and she locks her in a cupboard. Over at the Lochlan residence, Mr. Buckley
comes in to call on the family, but he happens onto a scene in the kitchen that unsettles him.
He finds the wife and daughter dead over the stew, and Buckley himself starts to cough up blood.
I’d say it’s time to get out of this quaint little town! The more the bad things grow in this story,
the more I really wonder why they all stay in this deathly town. Even once we get to church, we
see that the town is falling apart even more. Mr. Buckley takes a gun with him, Bridget is coughing
up blood, and there’s no telling what other secrets are being swept under the rug here.
His poor wife sits there and looks like she’s trying to stop the bleeding.
I don’t think that’s really going to do anything in this situation.
Meanwhile, Lochlan approaches Agatha’s home and tells her to go inside where they can’t be seen.
Once he closes the door, he admits to killing his family, and he talks about how she let him
go without food that one day. He blames her for his family not being able to survive,
and he tells her that he’s going to take what he can and leave town.
So you can leave town! Everybody should just go now!
Suddenly, Audrey picks her way out of the cupboard, and she sneaks up behind Lochlan
with a knife. With two fluid motions, she kills him, and the two women hide the body in the barn.
The two of them end up getting into a spat in the barn, and Audrey tells her mother just how
weak she really sees her as. Agatha warns that the town will come to search for him, but Audrey isn’t
swayed. They hide the body amongst the bales, but Agatha leaves his ring on top for some reason.
Body horror doesn’t really bother me, but I’ll be damned if mouth mutilation doesn’t do it for me.
That’s a sensitive part, and of course that would be the one kind they use in this story.
As Colm comes in to check on her, she takes this time to tell him that she wants to get an
abortion. He’s disgusted at the mention of it, and he leaves her there alone. As Bridget stands there
alone, she makes her way to the one good sheep they have left, and she reaches out for it.
Back at the church, Mr. Buckley’s widow shows up to ask the priest what he had talked to him about
that one day they spoke. She begins to think that there might’ve been another woman, but the priest
refuses to delve into what they talked about. It is here that someone finally mentions the
outside world! She asks him to reach out to one of the cities so they can deduce what happened
with science. Finally! It only took about four dead people and a whole bunch of livestock for
someone to ask about getting help. Eventually, the priest mentions how Mr.
Buckley thought he saw the daughter of Agatha, and he was trying to figure out the tactful way
to go about asking Agatha. Later, Agatha and Audrey are cleaning up the blood from
Lochlan when a knock comes at the door. After Agatha hides Audrey in the cupboard,
she lets the priest in, and he asks her about the conversation he had with Mr. Buckley.
Agatha denies everything, and she rushes him out the door. Just before he leaves,
the priest mentions to look out for another man that has poisoned his family, and Agatha
assures him that she hasn’t seen anyone else. If they hadn’t already hid the body, I’d almost
say that that would’ve been the perfect out for murdering Lochlan earlier. She could’ve played
up the self defense card really well there. Later, Colm comes home to a terrifying scene.
Blood paints the wall all the way up the stairs, and he finds his dead sheep lying in the crib
upstairs. He also sees Bridget holding the head in her lap as she rocks in the rocking chair.
He takes the dead sheep out to a little pyre and burns away every trace of the sheep.
Agatha quickly packs up the house so they can run away for awhile, but Audrey refuses to leave their
home. After reminding her mother how weak she sees her as, she heads outside to chop up her
travel box, and Agatha finally comes around to the fact that Audrey wants to stand her ground.
Honestly, I would too. If I spent my whole life being told that all other people were evil,
but I know that we had this epic connection and power, I would absolutely want to use it to
defend what was ours and our home. Go Audrey! Back in town, we see the widow taking her dead
husband’s gun, and we see Bridget taking a razor. Bridget shoves the razor up between her legs,
and Colm immediately hears the screams coming from the barn. When he goes to investigate,
he finds Bridget bleeding out from between her legs, and he takes the razor from her.
Colm calls the doctor out again, but this time, it’s to stitch up the wound. The doctor tells
him that she actually missed the child, and she’s still pregnant. When Bridget comes to, she sees
that she’s tied up in the bed, and the doctor gives her some drops to knock her back out.
Could you imagine being one of the cities that’s nearby, and they’re able to look
inside this sleepy pioneer town? Just watching as the world inside crumbles, and they sit out there
watching like it’s a bad reality tv show. When Colm steps out to talk to the doctor, Bridget
begins to convulse and holes appear all over her body as she screams. Of course, the next step was
to call in the priest, and the priest mentions the idea of Agatha having a daughter. Colm admits to
having seen someone that matches the description, and he mentions that everything with Bridget
happened the night he brought Audrey inside. After talking about it a little further,
Colm begins to speculate about who the father could’ve been.
Next, we see that the widow is snooping around in Agatha’s barn, and she finds the ring. As she digs
around the bales, she finds Lochlan’s body. What follows is a whole lot of heavy plot that
sucks you in. When the priest leaves Colm’s house, he runs into Audrey, and he asks why
she’s corrupting his town. She says it’s easier to just show him, and she pulls his spirit into
this other world where they’re surrounded by naked coven members, where they drink and kiss. Then,
we see Agatha who is running, but she swears she’s not running away when she gets caught
by the high priestess. It definitely looked like she was running from the other members
that were watching her on the path, but ok. Then, we see the priest welcome the widow in
Colm’s house, and he’s acting rather strangely. As the priest, the widow, and Colm gather,
the priest reaches out in prayer, but eventually, he begins to lose his way.
Colm takes over in the gathering, and he asks in prayer for Bridget to be released from the evil.
When she cries out from upstairs, Colm comes up and apologizes for how he’s been, and Bridget
takes her last breath. Back downstairs, the widow questions what’s wrong with the priest, but he
swears that he’s just under a lot of stress. She calls bullcrap and tells him that she saw
him with Audrey, and she goes ahead and mentions how she found Lochlan’s body in their shed.
If you’re going to pull a gun out to defend yourself, you might want to make sure you
can actually get to it. She’s lucky that he’s just sitting there, because there’s no way she
could’ve used it otherwise. Now that things are collecting for a finale, I’m beginning
to wonder if there will be anyone or anything left in the town by the time it’s done.
The widow calls for Colm, but when Colm gets there, he only sees the priest as the priest.
Not as Mr. Buckley. The widow ends up shooting the priest, and Colm prepares for whoever is
outside still. As Audrey comes in the house, Colm holds a knife to her throat to ask why
she’s doing all of this. Audrey mentions the day Colm threatened her mother, and we see Agatha
getting dragged in by the other members. As Audrey faces Agatha, she thanks her before
turning her attention back to Colm. When Colm asks who the father of Audrey is, Agatha tells
him that she’s still a virgin and there was no father. The high priestess hands Colm a blade,
and Audrey promises to grant him whatever wish he wants. Agatha begs them to have mercy on her,
but the other women hold her down on the table as Colm gently sinks the knife in Agatha’s torso.
Suddenly, footsteps are heard coming down the stairs, and we see Bridget appear.
The next morning, Audrey wanders through the woods until she comes to a real road,
and a truck picks her up. Anyone could’ve done that at anytime! Instead people stay behind where
all this crazy Satanic stuff is going on. Right after that, we cut to Colm and Bridget.
Bridget is full term, and Colm is finally getting crops to grow in the soil again.
After Bridget goes into labor, she gives birth to something so hideous that they tell the midwife
to kill it, and the credits roll. That’s it! We don’t even get to see what the abomination is!
All in all, I actually really enjoyed this one though. It was an interesting premise
with an easy solution, but everything was done except for that one thing.
The acting was phenomenal which was a nice change of pace to some of the other recent watches.
Thank you for watching, and I hope you enjoyed the
video. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more like this one.
Comment what you think I should watch next, and I’ll see you in the next video.