WILDLING: Move Over, Vampires

“Do you want to hear a story? Do you want me to tell you about the wildling? His teeth are long and sharp like *this*. And so are his nails. Long and sharp like *this*. And his hair is long and black all over his whole body. Do you want to hear more?”

Wildling is a wildly original creature feature that transcends the horror genre. Horror legend, iconic character actor, and Oscar nominee Brad Dourif, Liv Tyler, and rising star Bel Powley (The Diary Of A Teenage Girl) give a trio of superb performances. As the central and titular character, Powley delivers yet another powerhouse performance, following her The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Carrie Pilby roles.

Writer and director Fritz Böhm makes his feature film debut and first time at the helm in 12 years with Wildling. Böhm is perhaps best known for the award-winning short Mondmann in 2006. Since then he’s only worked as a producer out of his Munich-based production company, Toccata Film, and a production manager.

Committed Performances

Let us take a moment to realize the brilliance that is Brad Dourif. He’s always impossibly natural in front of a camera, no matter how bizarre of a role he has to play. He’s voiced Chucky seven times in the Child’s Play franchise, but he’s perhaps better known to wider audiences as Billy Bibbit in Miloš Forman‘s (who won the Best Director Oscar that year) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, starring alongside Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher (both of whom won the Oscars for their performances in the film).

Between his work in the horror genre, including Rob Zombie‘s Halloween remakes, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Wildling, Dourif has shown that he may not have any hindrances to his range as an actor.

Similarly, Powley, who astounded audiences at Sundance in 2015 with The Diary of a Teenage Girl, keeps showing audiences that she seemingly has no limited range as an actor. In Wildling, she has to bring an intense amount of physicality to the role of Anna. Certainly, the role requires a more animalistic and bestial approach.

Powley sells it perfectly, every slight turn of the head, growl, sneer, and gross-out faux pas. Though Anna similarly undergoes a path to womanhood like Minnie does in The Diary of a Teenage Girl, it is a vastly different path. It is a darker, bloodier, bolder, and more harrowing one, but one that symbolizes the hardships of growing up and coming of age in this world without a supportive family nonetheless.

What’s Going On, Here?

At its surface, Wildling is about a man (Dourif), credited in IMDb as Daddy, who holds a girl named Anna in his basement for the duration of her childhood and into her teenage years. It appears to the audience that he kidnapped her as a baby and raised her on his own. He’s brainwashed her. “There is no one but Anna and Daddy. Anna and Daddy. But only Daddy can go outside because Anna is too small. Anna must stay inside,” he tells her. To her knowledge, there is nobody else besides him and her in the world.

Unsettlingly, there is a shock system set up on the inside of the door, so as to keep her indoors. The reason he gives her for not being able to go outside is that there is a beast called the wildling that has eaten all of the children, and she remains the last child, so she must stay hidden for her own safety. Sadly, for reasons the audience doesn’t know until the third act, Daddy keeps Anna’s ovulation cycle from happening, so she hasn’t quite become a woman yet.

After an accident, Anna is released into the world like a fish out of water, and is taken in by Officer Ellen Cooper (Tyler), who realizes how little Anna knows about the real world. She assimilates as best she can, going to school, trying her best to fit in. However, something is wrong. Terribly wrong. Disturbing happenings begin occurring. Or are they completely natural? Is Anna’s journey to womanhood normal for who she is? Or what she is?

The Technical Positives

Florian Eder cowrites the script with Böhm, and it’s a tightly-woven, taught, exciting gem of a story. At only 92 minutes, before the audience can fully grasp what is happening to our central character, it is over. In a sense, Wildling is the calm before a metaphorical storm. Acclaimed horror cinematographer Toby Oliver (Get Out) does a phenomenal job lighting and shooting the film. During the scenes in Daddy’s basement, we see an increasingly almost black and white hue to the frame as Anna ages, with various things such as the gummy bears on her birthday cake standing out in vivid color to highlight the simple joys that she has held onto all of these years to keep going.

In Wildling, Dourif’s Daddy talks about the better place, a sort of afterlife. When Anna is rescued from his home, there is a sort of ethereal, heavenly lighting in the hospital room when Tyler’s Officer Cooper is talking to Anna; in going so many years without light, Oliver wanted to emulate from Anna’s point of view what it would seem like to be around such a bright room. In Anna’s state of shock, it could also be her hallucinating and imagining or interpretation of “the better place.” Paul Haslinger (Fear The Walking Dead) does a fantastic job of building tension. It’s a very subtle strings-heavy score that focuses on the bass and doesn’t try to drown out the scene or make audiences jump or shriek, which is admirable.

Conclusion: Stay Until The Very End

Audiences won’t want to miss the shocking, terrifying, and visually rewarding third-act of Wildling. It’s a refreshing boost of energy after a gripping but decidedly slow first two acts. I never thought that werewolf fare was a legitimate horror genre contender. To me, much of the werewolf subgenre was never scary, and didn’t seem to have very much social or political commentary intertwined in it. However, Wildling isn’t exactly a werewolf film. I wouldn’t even call the wildling a werewolf. Wildling is a film about growing up as an outsider, becoming a woman, being free from oppression, and loving your body as it is.

Wildling is a phenomenal, original horror film that transcends the genre, offers a trio of strong performances from Powley, Dourif, and Tyler, and marks a debut for the ages for writer and director Fritz Böhm.

Was Wildling what you expected it to be? Did you enjoy the twist? The Wildling or Bigfoot?

The Wildling is released theatrically and on VOD in the U.S. on April 13, 2018. For more information on its release, click here.