Film Review: The Widow (2021)
There are two primordial formulas for creating great horror: do something we’ve never seen before, or do something we know and like, but do it better than we can immediately recall. The Widow tries to do the latter with an unimaginative draw from a film that perfectly exemplifies the former, but its phones-in details, yada-yada-ing through familiar territory without ever taking a worthwhile foray into the Russian folklore it spends 20% of its duration articulating.
There are few things worse than a half-assed indie horror film where you can almost hear the director call his father for more money midway through, trying to patch up the ill-formed, half-finished dullard-baby with a few more flashy effects.
Since The Widow isn’t breaking new ground, let's tilt at believing this film is trying to do something better than we can immediately recall. Newly-beloved auteurs like Ari Aster and Roberts Eggers seem to have found the formula for perfecting telling an old story in a way we find unique, and the 80s franchises and reactionary 90s new-generation (excuse me, nu-generation) slashers are natural evolutions of the pointed embrace of violence we saw through the 70s.
The Russian Sequel that isn’t a Sequel (or it is?)
The Widow is a too-deeply rooted recreation of a movie we’re all familiar with, but let’s see if I can make you guess it: There’s a film crew shooting in some ancient, exceptionally dense forest that exists “on the outskirts of a major city” where people frequently go missing in some god-forsaken Russian hinterland. They frequently look at the camera and monologue about this discomfort, sounds they think they heard, and offer undergrad-caliber anthropological assessments on the strange carvings and crafts they find in the woods.
Are you thinking of The Blair Witch Project? I’m sorry to say you’re wrong.
Instead of standing on the shoulders of a giant, the filmmakers have elected to create a watered down, lackluster version of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. That’s right, The Widow is Russian Blair Witch 2.
I hate Rotten Tomatoes, but I’m going to point out that this film has a 14% score there, and anytime around 15% of people find something nice to say about a movie, you know it’s uniquely crap, the kind that can’t be salvaged for fun or viewed from a different angle like single-digit, foggy gems can be.
Rather than be a true found footage movie–a genre I will unabashedly defend despite its multitude of lame entries–The Widow opts to do the far-worse and more expensive found footage recreation, wherein actors recreate the experience of an amateur film team.
I’ver never understood why this is a thing, not in Book of Shadows, and not with The Widow. I’d even say many of the worst horror movies I’ve subjected myself to fall into this weird sub-genre.
Anyway, now that I’ve crapped all over this film, let’s rehash the initial offering and see if it piques your interest.
The Story. Finally.
A film crew follows a wilderness rescue group charged with searching for missing people in the forests and caves outside of St. Petersburg. The film opens with a new trainee failing a rescue exercise in which the victim is outfitted with high-end wound mechanisms to simulate real injuries. First, I don’t know what municipality is going to fund something like this–heavy effects makeup and fake spurting wounds for the purpose of training–and second, despite showcasing this ‘enhanced’ training at the outset of the movie, it never becomes a plot point, which is frankly bizarre.
Throughout the long ninety minutes I waited for this to become something, for a character presumed dead to pop up again because–surprise!–their death was staged using the high-end training materials. Nope. It’s literally just thrown in at the start because they wanted to show some semi-cool gore effects.
This is the point where, if I did video reviews, I would stare into middle distance for about seven seconds before making a hard break to when the film found its feet.
Not All Bad?
When the film does get rolling with all the usual witchy tricks–illusion, possession, a rescued victim who ham-fistedly doomsays whenever questioned, it does a fair job of keeping a solid pace. One by one, the characters get picked off after usually uncovering a little bit more of the mystery around the widow. Between abrupt cuts to landscape shots where over-the-top creepy music plays, we learn the history of the evil figure and how she is treated today.
There are a few fairly-obvious misdirections and one half-hearted red herring attempt, but otherwise The Widow hums along much as you’d expect. It’s not all bad, and manages to create a modestly creepy atmosphere without resorting to jump scares (which have their place) or heavy CGI effects. There’s even one quite clever puppetry set piece that held my attention quite well, and is worth seeing.
The film also ends well, tying up loose ends and briefly-mentioned plot points with a few scenes that show someone attended at least the first few semesters of film school. It doesn’t raise the film to a better level by any means, but it avoids completely cratering in the way that a lot of bad indie horror does.
There’s a brief prick of pain in knowing that the source material could have been better used, as we know a Russian setting inherently infuses a work with mystery, at least for Western audiences. It ends with a cringey jumpscare worthy of the better Blumhouse 2010s properties, but this is easily forgivable since such things were almost entirely avoided in the preceding 90 minutes.
In the end, you may find something to like in The Widow if you’re a casual horror movie fan who isn’t looking for anything too engaging. I recognize that not everyone mainlines horror 365 days a year like I do, and hence movies like this have their place. If you’re even a mild horror enthusiast, you’ll be left wanting and your time is better spent elsewhere.
Final Verdict: 4/10
Strengths
One solid scare worthy of a better movie
Ties up loose ends well enough
Is fun to refer to as ‘Russian Book of Shadows’
Weaknesses
Unimaginative, unambitious, unoriginal writing and production
Too long (~100 minutes) for such a crap film
Literally is Russian Book of Shadows
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