Movie Review: THE MOOR

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: July 3rd, 2024 / 01:29 AM

THE MOOR movie poster | ©2024 Bulldog Film Distribution

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Sophia La Porta, David Edward-Robinson, Elizabeth Dormer-Phillips, Mark Peachey, Vicki Hackett, Bernard Hill, Dexter Sol Ansill, Billie Suggett
Writer: Paul Thomas
Director: Chris Cronin
Distributor: Bulldog Film Distribution
Release Date: June 14, 2024 (UK theatrical); July 1, 2024 (UK digital)

The Yorkshire moors in Northern England are plenty spooky-looking in broad daylight. They are vast, often mist-shrouded, containing ancient artifacts, and peat bogs that are like grassy quicksand.

In other words, they are the perfect place for a ghost story like THE MOOR. In 1996 Yorkshire, young Claire (Billie Suggett) convinces her even younger friend Danny (Dexter Sol Ansill) to help her steal candy from a liquor store. The plan is for Danny to distract the cashier by saying he’s gotten lost from his father.

But when Claire tries to exit the shop, her path is briefly blocked by a strange man. She runs out and waits for Danny, but he doesn’t come out. When she finally goes back inside, the cashier says, “His dad came in and took him.”

We see posters all over town of missing children. Danny is only the latest in what seems to be an epidemic.

Twenty-five years later, the adult Claire (Sophia La Porta) returns to Yorkshire. Her parents took her out of town to get away from the media. Now, though, Claire goes to see Danny’s father, Bill (David Edward-Robinson).

Both Claire and Bill are appalled that the man convicted of abducting Danny and others is being released from prison. Bill is convinced that the bodies are on the moors, and if he can just find them, then the killer will be locked up forever.

Claire agrees to help in the search, although she has never been on the moors before. Bill says he goes up there all the time. His friend Liz (Vicki Hackett), who is affiliated with the Moor Rangers, agrees to serve as a guide. They are joined by Alex (Mark Peachey), who is somewhat psychic, and his teen daughter Eleanor (Elizabeth Dormer-Phillips), who is extremely psychic.

All of the cast members are excellent, with Edward-Robinson conveying affecting anguish.

Director Chris Cronin is aware and takes full advantage of the ominous atmosphere of the moors. In this deceptive landscape, with hidden cliffs and dead drops and reminders of long-ago civilizations showing up unpredictably, it’s easy to believe in the supernatural.

Writer Paul Thomas instills urgent motivation in both Claire and Bill, driven by guilt and grief. In the film’s desire to underscore the supernatural pull of the moors, it gets overly ambiguous in the concluding third, especially with the implication that the moor “wants” something. (Given the specifics of what it wants, the questions are first “why,” and second, what stopped it in the first place.)

However, this ambiguity serves THE MOOR in terms of amping up our unease. To be clear, THE MOOR is not a found-footage film, but it conjures up some of what made THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT so unsettling – we know just enough about the unknown here to be even more afraid that we would if things were clearer.

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Article: Movie Review: THE MOOR

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