There's a really great core idea here and an overall solid story that with just a few minor tweaks could've made an absolute classic, but there's something hard to define that's not quite worked.

I can't figure out if it's the characters, the acting, the editing, or what, but for some reason I couldn't connect and wasn't absorbed on an emotional level - there was no character I was rooting for, none I was rooting against. Someone died and it was acknowledged, but I didn't care.

And if I'm not feeling something emotionally, it loses a major part of the battle for me. The brain parts of the people behind this got everything just about right, but the heart parts I think got left at home.

Very interesting tale of a binge-drinking, cocaine-snorting city type on the verge of a breakdown, visiting her rural-dwelling mother for a very difficult reunion. There's the spectre of a mysteriously deceased father, mentions of the Olde Ways, and the obligatory not-as-harmless-as-they-seem villagers. The first and third acts could be from completely different films, yet it just about works, as both mother/daughter drama and countryside weirdness are dark and intriguing.

Matriarch also largely avoids sudden shocks for the slowly emerging realisation of terror, whilst mixing in unsettling visuals and details which only become clear later on. The central performances are great; Jemima Rooper bravely makes her character spiteful and unlikeable yet still somehow sympathetic, whilst Kate Dickie as her mum is subtly yet unmistakably wrong from the outset, and it just escalates from there. Wonderfully bleak scenery as well; frosty churchyards and desolate roads that don't seem to lead to anywhere.

I have made this account JUST to combat the incredibly unjust reviews that have been given to this movie. A score of 4.4 with the current abysmal offerings of movies we have today is truly criminal.. In truth, my honest score is probably an 8, but I am giving a ten to offset the incredibly unfair reviews that have been left by people that should never have watched it in the first place. This was a brilliant, eerie, British horror. People who liked the witch, or A24 horror movies will adore this movie.. No, the characters are not 'likeable' and no, you won't find baby Yoda and Chris Pratt holding hands singing along to Ed Sheeran. I'm intentionally not commenting on the plot, for it needs to be seen without seeding thoughts in your brain from these reviews. If I can get one person to reconsider the negative reviews and make their own opinion - I will be very happy. We need more indie movies like this. It genuinely gives me hope for the future of cinema. So I'm not implying you should all think this movie is fantastic because I do, but to PLEASE just give it a go and make your own opinion. This movie, and the crew involved in making it, deserve far more.