One of my favorite werewolf movies is Dog Soldiers from director Neil Marshall. Since then I will watch anything he does and loved his follow up film The Descent. Now he is taking on the world of the witch with his latest film The Reckoning starring Charlotte Kirk, Joe Anderson, Steven Waddington and Sean Pertwee. Could this bring something new to the genre or will it be just another fake witch hunt?

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The Reckoning follows Grace Haverstock who is unjustly accused of being a witch and placed in the custody of England’s most ruthless witch-hunter, Judge Moorcroft after losing her husband during the Great Plague. Forced to endure physical and emotional torture while steadfastly maintaining her innocence, Grace must face her own inner demons as the Devil himself starts to work his way into her mind.

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I dived into this one with no knowledge other than Marshall’s involvement so didn’t have any specific expectations going in. I assumed it was going to be more horror than it was, but kind of happy in the direction it went dealing with the time of people being accused of being witches just for something different. The story itself is interesting and works offering up some fresh takes in familiar territory of these stories. The set-up is fairly simple and does take a while to really get going making me initially worried it wasn’t going anywhere. There are some klunky moments in the performances here and there and a bit all of the place at first.

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Thankfully as it gets more into the witch accusations and interrogation it steps up a bit more. I enjoyed a lot of aspects to the film and these scenes are both fun to watch but also so frustrating just in their sheer annoyance of the mentality that was happening during this time. Once we get to this part of the film it offers up more creepy moments and some interesting direction to deal with this aspect of history. Yes it adds more of a Hollywood element complete with action and some out of place elements, but as a whole it works fairly well.

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This isn’t standing out as one of Marshall’s best film but it still manages to deliver something worth checking out. Decide for yourself and check out The Reckoning available now on Blu-ray and DVD from RLJE Films.