The first name we see onscreen in “She Will” belongs not to its director (Charlotte Colbert) or its star (Alice Krige), but to one of its executive producers, the horror maestro Dario Argento. And it doesn’t take long to recognize the ways in which the plot of this confident first feature (written by Colbert and Kitty Percy) might have appealed to Argento: The emphasis on dreams, the sly humor and — perhaps most of all — the despoilment of female beauty.
What’s notable here is Colbert’s restraint, so much so that I hesitate to describe “She Will,” which is virtually bloodless, as a horror movie. Certainly, horrible things have happened to Veronica Ghent (Krige), an aging star recovering from a double mastectomy, but they’re seen mostly through the veils of memory and suggestion. And when she arrives at a remote healing retreat in Scotland with her warmhearted nurse, Desi (an excellent Kota Eberhardt), Veronica appears less a damaged celebrity than an imperious misanthrope with a dry, dark wit.
“Scout camp, with a touch of Guantánamo,” she declares their destination, appalled by the unexpected presence of a gaggle of pyramid-worshiping spiritualists. Retreating to a cottage deep in the woods and the comfort of her pain medication, Veronica hopes to find rest and solitude; instead, her dreams are filled with bonfires and shackled women and a ghastly, imploring, helmeted figure. The retreat might be located on the site of 18th-century witch burnings, but it’s a far more recent injury that begins to invade Veronica’s sleep, one involving her 13-year-old self and Eric Hathbourne (Malcolm McDowell), the director of her first film.
Blending sensuous imagery with jabs of feminist wit — at one point, a vibrator is weaponized against a male intruder — Colbert sends her heroine on a transformative journey of revenge and renewal. As Veronica absorbs the forest’s damp foliage and sucking peat, her pain eases and she discards her prosthetics. Old wounds, both physical and psychological, are being dug up and aired out, the confrontation of the past becoming a means to accepting her ruined beauty. Makeup, she tells us, has always offered a ritual of preservation; now her slash of carmine lipstick is an act of defiance.
Assembled for atmosphere rather than shocks, “She Will” artfully devises paranormal consequences for male violence. Jamie D. Ramsay’s cinematography casts a sullen thundercloud over exterior and interior shots alike, a child’s party balloons in one early scene appearing filled not with helium but with foreboding. When you’re about to embark on a witch hunt, that’s exactly the ambience you want.
She Will
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
