Long on mystery, short on resolution

Cast: Catherine Walker, Jessica Reynolds, David Lereaney Director: Thomas Robert Lee Duration: 1 h 33 m

You can’t spell The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw without a Y. And there are many more of them as you wade through the film’s 93 minutes of atmospheric madness.

Why, for instance, is this film set in 1973? As the opening scroll makes clear, this small, seemingly Irish village is actually made up of people who left Ireland in 1873, moved to “North America” (why nothing more specific?) and have been living away from the general populace ever since.

So there’s no M. Night Shyamalan “gotcha” moment where we suddenly learn that these are modern times. And the good people of wherever- this- is also know the score; no one bats an eye when an airplane flies by.

The unusual time- andplace setting does at least explain the variety of accents among the townspeople; 100 years will cause some linguistic drift.

In the real world it’s because the cast is a mix of the bona fide Irish — Sean McGinley as the town’s religious leader — and Canadians like Manitoba’s Hannah Emily Anderson and Jared Abrahamson, gamely doing their best, begorrah. Don Mckellar also pops up, hiding behind a topiary beard.

That opening scroll — almost a novella, really — also sets up the fact that in 1956 an event referred to as “the eclipse” caused the town to fall on hard times.

Crops failed, babies died and misfortune ruled, except at the home of local spinster Agatha Earnshaw ( Catherine Walker) and her daughter, Audrey ( Jessica Reynolds).

Born during those tumultuous times, Audrey is now 17 and eager to avenge her mother when a local attacks her, angry that only her farm seems to be thriving. This she does by placing a curse on the man, which spreads through the village. Madness, depravity and suicide follow.

And questions. So many questions . “W h o’ s t he father?” more than one person asks about Audrey, to no avail. Why is everyone coughing up blood? Where did that coven of witches come from and what’s their game? Is it possible to get knifed in the back and bleed through the throat?

The Curse is a second feature from writer- director Thomas Robert Lee (Empyrean) and while it might invite comparisons to Robert Eggers’s The Witch, David Bruckner’s The Ritual or fellow Canadian Adam MacDonald’s Pyewacket, it unfortunately comes up short alongside them.

The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw is long on mystery and ambience, short on resolution and closure. It’s a question without a satisfying answer, a curse with no cure. ½