The Crescent (2017 film)

Summary

After an unexpected death in the family, a woman and her small child are enfolded in an atmosphere of dread at remote estate on the coast.

Details

Promotional image for The Crescent (2017 film)...

• Release Date: 2017
• Country/Language: Canada, English
• Genres/Technical: Horror, Fantasy, Art/Experimental
• Setting: Modern Canada (but could as easily have been set in any era and coast)
• Runtime: 1 hr 39 min
• Starring: Danika Vandersteen, Woodrow Graves, Terrance Murray
• Director: Seth A. Smith
• Writer: Darcy Spidle (screenwriter)
• Producer/Production Co: Nancy Urich, Cut Off Tail
• View Trailer: (link)
• IMDB Page: (link)

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: not rated (equivalent perhaps to PG-13)

I don't remember seeing any extreme violence beyond a not-too-upsetting example at the climax, and I don't recall any nudity, adult content, or strong language, and it's not even an especially scary movie, but I doubt many kids will be comfortable watching this one: it's slow-moving and creepy in a way that can really get under the skin and perhaps cause some nightmares, without providing much to entertain a youngster with. The small amount of violence that is there is brief and not very gory, but probably still strong enough to require some parental discretion (a home invader gets his head mashed with a stick full of nails on-screen in a relatively bloodless special effect).

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• SS___ (Two Tentacles: Barely Lovecraftian; vaguely similar in tone, could be a very loose adaptation)

I think the right atmosphere of cosmic dread is there, and some characters and the main premise could plausibly be compared to or linked with Deep Ones, though no explicit Yog-Sothothry, tomes, and that sort of thing appear in the movie.

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

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Synopsis (SPOILERS)

 Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)

After an unexpected death in the family, a woman and her small child are enfolded in an atmosphere of dread at remote estate on the coast to which they have retreated for healing, where weird and surreal things begin happening. Most of the movie is taken up in the woman's rather hypnotic art techniques and the film's strange music score, before following the surprisingly photogenic toddler child-actor through the dark and eerie house for about a third of the movie's run time, while sinister things happen in the background and just off screen, before the movie pulls a Carnival of Souls twist involving what are, effectively, Deep Ones, who have, with one exception, come to welcome the family back to the sea and return the child to life after the family's deaths/near-deaths in a boating accident; the exception is an elderly neighbor, a sea-thing disguised as a human, who wants to steal the child's body to extend his unnatural existence....

Notes

Associated Mythos Elements

• film: compare to Carnival of Souls (1962 film)
• race: Deep Ones