The Cull

Niall (Craig Russell) has spent the past 16 years behind bars for the murder of his mother, a crime he insists he never committed. In search of a new life of freedom and peace, Niall takes up residence in a remote woodland cabin, armed with nothing but his newfound faith and drive to find out the truth behind his mother’s death, but his hopes of any solitude are rapidly extinguished when he encounters a local family hell-bent on exacting their own kind of revenge. Niall soon discovers that his own past, the connections to these people and the forest in which they live, go far deeper than he could ever know.

Director JP Davidson keeps the viewer guessing as to the real mystery behind the life and death of Niall’s mother, and there is a surprising level of depth to the plot, arguably too much at times, as each layer and secret begins to unravel further. Russell is a strong and relatively silent anchor of the film, but it is the wider cast, including Richard Hainsworth and Ollie McFarlane, that inject a quirky chill to the action, doing the best they can with some rather uninspiring dialogue.

As the lines blur between Niall’s reality and the horrors of his imagination, the movie comes to life, pushing the viewer onto the back foot at every opportunity and never letting the audience know what is coming next. While this does ask for complete suspension of disbelief, if one welcomes the surrealism with open arms, what one receives is a crazy, whirlwind joyride of creativity for 90 minutes.

One of the best ways a movie can overcome its low budget is to be brave when it comes to its visual and audible elements, and The Cull does this superbly. Shot almost entirely in the woodlands of Cornwall, cinematographer Lily Grimes takes full advantage of the gritty, mud-caked environment in which Niall finds himself. The cold and unforgiving forest makes for the perfect setting for a British folk horror such as this, and when Niall is thrust into a world of drugs and Satanism, the visuals and editing experiment is fully unleashed, never once looking back. What’s more, the true cold, chilling, bloody violence comes in what is heard, not what is seen, with the soundscape created proving almost, if not more, horrifying than the drama on screen.

Does one really know what is going on half the time when watching The Cull? Not really, but for anyone looking for a frightful flick to indulge in this Halloween, this twisted trip might just be the answer.

Guy Lambert

The Cull is released in select cinemas on 30^th October 2026.

Watch the trailer for The Cull here: