When I think of folk horror I tend to imagine a place set back far in the past—void of new age technology and culture. Whether it be individuals from a more modern setting coming across this location as with Midsommar (2019) and The Ritual (2017) or it is the primary setting such as the setting of The Witch (2015), usually folk horror normally delivers on that feeling of being out of place or being subject to a very rural environment. Folk horror typically ties into the natural world as well, with individuals ending up at the mercy of ancient deities, religious cults, or a mixture of both.
Jikirag, released in early September this year, takes both of these concepts to heart. The film follows a village of refugees attempting to escape the Black Plague in the 14th century. They travel to a forest presided over by the Jikirag—a powerful woodland god in control of all the nature within the forest. The village elder, Vouga, strikes a deal with the deity, claiming to never take more than the village will use. However, the Jikirag mysteriously begins stealing the village children away in the night, leading the villagers to wonder what they did to upset the god.
This film has no reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 2.9 out of 10 on IMDb. The lack of reviews isn’t particularly surprising as the film was not released on any major streaming platforms, the most notable ones being Amazon Video and YouTube as rent-only. Likewise, there were no real advertisements for it anywhere across social media. Even I managed to stumble across this movie by complete accident and said to myself, “wait a second, when did you get here?”
Perhaps it was for the best that the movie did not get attention online, as I am certain many would consider it as confusing as I did.
The first problem that I have with this film is the dialogue. Every character speaks with a pseudo-Shakespearean vernacular, which wouldn’t be bad had they not decided to also try and implement modern language and structure to it. The results are something that sounds vaguely “Old English”, but like the characters are trying too hard to establish their time and location. Most lines spoken could have been only three or five words, but ended up being far more due to the unnecessary flowery vocabulary added to the sentence. What might have been a fine little touch to the setting’s authenticity thus ended up sounding like the characters were trying to show off that they knew fancy words.
Now, using Old English does not necessarily make a movie bad on its own. The Witch is a fine example of this, with the characters speaking in ways that are relatively accurate to the time period without sacrificing an overall understanding of the plot. I feel like this works because the characters do not say too much, thus enabling us as the audience to infer what is happening based on actions and body language. Jikirag, however, is so dialogue-heavy that most of the scenes consist of characters just walking or staying in one spot and having conversations. Unfortunately, relying on dialogue to pursue a plot when the dialogue is unintelligible is a good way to isolate the audience from what is happening on screen.
Additionally, the mysterious shaman in the film frequently repeats himself. While the delivery of the lines are chilling the first time, the repetition ruins them. This also has the consequence of turning what could have been a shorter scene into a much longer one for no reason. There was no need for having the shaman repeat “forest take forest give” as many times as he did. It landed the first time and shouldn’t have needed to land again.
Next, we have the inability to connect with the characters. The very first scene introduces two men, Ewan and Shapur, wandering in the woods searching for Shapur’s son. The sheer fact that the audience is immediately thrusted into the scene adds to this film’s elusive nature. We don’t get to know the missing boy who was already dead at the beginning of the film, nor do we get to know Shapur. Both of these characters are seemingly there to die. This would not be too much of a problem if Shapur wasn’t then used as a means of gaining sympathy from the audience or during his burial scene. We cannot truly sympathize with the characters holding a funeral for him nor can we feel disturbed by viewing his corpse because we don’t know who he was.
The women and children in this film fall under similar circumstances. Two are dead in the beginning of the movie and we do not engage with them prior. The only child I can remember the name of is Uriel, which is because her name is either mentioned or shouted on multiple occasions throughout the movie. Likewise, Vouga and Alis are the only two women that truly matter. The others are easily forgettable and fail to provide much in terms of plot or character development. Vouga is a core character because she was the one who established the deal with the Jikirag and therefore knows what is happening. Alis, on the other hand, acted so different from everyone else in the village that the audience had no choice but to notice her.
The central male character, Ewan, barely obtains the title of a main character due to the unfortunate circumstances that fall upon him. He ends up turning into some form of plant zombie, which leads to him becoming the antagonist in the final moments of the film. Yet again, his character isn’t developed enough for us to truly feel bad for him. If the movie stopped moving away from his character to focus on Vouga, perhaps there could have been a deeper connection between us and Ewan to make the turning point far more emotional. Instead, he is often set aside and forgotten about.
I cannot mention characters without discussing the father and daughter duo introduced at the midway point of the movie. This introduction comes out of seemingly nowhere and there is far too much time spent on them only for them to be killed off rather quickly. These characters could have provided a fantastic introduction to the movie had the scenes introducing them been very short and sweet.
I will give props to the movie for adding outsiders in the first place and having the perspective be from the villagers. It isn’t often that horror movies remove the mystery behind forest cults deep in the woods and instead focus on the troubles that lead them to a point of sacrifice. Introducing the film with the “sacrifices” to make us believe they were the main characters, killing them off at the start, and then shifting the focus to the villagers could have made for a fantastic twist in narrative. Instead, I wondered what the point of introducing new characters in the middle of the plot was, only to feel robbed of my time.
I should note that not all of the movie was terrible. The set design is fantastic, and it is clear the people who made this setting put a lot of effort into it. The village is surrounded by a wall of sharpened branches that stick straight up. During an escape scene the villagers run through what looks like a small side part of the village that the audience wouldn’t have even known about. The villager houses look comfortable and simple, but they stand out well. Everything within the village has a strong natural feel to it, which really implements a fantasy-esque setting. In addition, the sound production is great. The sound of drums intensifies a situation as it progresses and the shrill scream of the Shaman that causes Vouga to cover her ears is spine-chilling. Hearing the crunch and crack of the rabbit that Alis squeezes to death was enough to disturb me without having to actually see it in her hands.
If you are interested in watching a rather confusing movie to try and pick apart for some minor amusement, I would recommend this one. Otherwise, you are unfortunately not going to get much from it. The ending is incredibly abrupt, the progression is slow and with little development, and the execution is overall perplexing. While I do think the concept of the Jikirag is interesting, it simply does not provide enough intrigue to make watching the full film valuable.
My Rating: 3/10
Comments