Apostle - A witch is for life (not just for a pagan festival)

You know how it is… you buy a witch for your children when it's young.  Sure, it's cute with its little broomstick and pointed green nose, but soon the kids grow up and only want a cell phone and Snapchat account.  And you find you're the one left feeding and looking after the confused elderly woman who doesn't know whether to pet her black cat or boil her cauldron.  What do you do with her?  Flush her down the toilet and run the risk of her mutating in a sewer into a giant witch, or drive her out to the middle of nowhere and dump her, leaving yourself open to allegations of 'witch abuse.' No, the best thing to do is lock her up out of site and occasionally feed her then pretend like nothing ever happened.  Welcome to 'Apostle' - Netflix's latest original horror film.

Only it's not present day, it's roughly a hundred years ago and the whole thing feels like someone has watched 'The Wicker Man' (the original, not the one with 'The bees!  The bees'!  Not the bees in my eyes!') and kind of changed a few things around.  A man from mainland Britain (Dan Stevens) travels to a 'backward' island off the coast to find a missing girl.  There, he discovers the settlement isn't quite as perfect as people have led him to believe.

I know I'm being a bit flippant about the whole storyline, but it's actually pretty watchable, especially if you already have Netflix and are into horror - then it's a definite watch.  Dan Stevens does well to 'roughen' his natural good looks and make himself appear more dishevelled throughout the whole film and he's a good leading man.  The head villagers are suitably bonkers and when we see the more 'otherworldly' inhabitants, they're done with make-up rather than CGI, which is nice.

What's definitely worth a mention is the cinematography, which is pretty amazing.  I'm not sure where this was filmed, but it really does look an amazingly beautify location and the set is built to replicate the time period perfectly.  The scenery and establishing shots look so crisp the almost reminded me of some sort of Playatation 4 cut-scene which has been rendered to look that good.

The film's does suffer from being a little on the long side - two hours, rather than the more 'standard' ninety minutes and there's probably at least quarter of an hour that could have been cut to move things along a bit.  There are a few sub-plots which could  have been trimmed to accomplish this.  But, all in all, it's a good, atmospheric, slow-burner of a horror film which many should enjoy.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights