Movie Review: THINE EARS SHALL BLEED

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: July 19th, 2024 / 01:29 AM

THINE EARS SHALL BLEED movie poster | ©2024 Miracle Media Trinity / Creative Partnership

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Andrew Hovelson, Hannah Cabell, Lucas Near-Verbrugghe, Lea Zawada, Duke Huston
Writers: Ben Bigelow & William Bigelow
Director: Ben Bigelow
Distributor: Miracle Media/Trinity Creative Partnership
Release Date: July 9, 2024 (digital U.S.); July 15, 2024 (digital U.K.)

THINE EARS SHALL BLEED is period folk horror that feels like a less ambitious version of 2016’s THE WITCH. We’re in the 1860s rather than the 1600s, the central family is not quite so strict, and the supernatural gets more verbal explanation.

Nevertheless, it’s a clash between conventional evangelical religion and the forces of darkness.

Reverend Ezekiel Thatcher (Andrew Hovelson), his wife Sarah (Hannah Cabell), spirited daughter Abigail (Lea Zawada) and devout blind son Luke (Lucas Near-Berbrugghe) are traveling by covered wagon through majestic wilderness (the film was shot in Montana) to retrieve a musical instrument for Ezekiel’s church.

A fork in the road that’s not on the map leads them into a mountain forest. They spend the night, and in the morning, the horses that have pulled the wagon are gone. This presents an immediate problem, as does being unable to find a path back to civilization.

However, all of them hear a strange sound that reverberates throughout the woods, so powerful that it makes Ezekiel’s ears bleed. Ezekiel and Luke believe the noise is the voice of God, especially when Luke can suddenly see. Sarah thinks it may be something sinister.

Then Abigail comes across botanist Woodrow Booker (Duke Huston), who is badly injured and has been lost out here for a good while now. He has his own theory about the sound.

At about the halfway mark, we get exposition about what’s probably afoot here and can guess much of the rest of what’s coming.

Even so, director Ben Bigelow and his co-screenwriter William Bigelow craft period dialogue that sounds plausible, within a horror story that proceeds with the right amount of suspense and jump scares. There are also some good details, like Abigail doing a card trick that her parents fear “has a touch of evil,” and some alarming “transcriptions.”

The filmmakers also invest enough in the characters that they emerge as individuals rather than archetypes, albeit Ezekiel is so heartily ego-driven that we might wish for a few more moments of doubt on his part. There isn’t too much effort to make any of the characters unduly sympathetic, which on the one hand prevents us from being too invested, but on the other hand is uncommon enough to be rather refreshing.

The actors have just the right amount of formality in dealing with one another, as even family members within this culture might maintain a certain reserve around each other. Huston as the outsider handles Booker’s interactions deftly.

One deficit here is that the unearthly sound, while startling, is loud but neither terrifying nor seductive enough for us to empathize with how the characters react. There are obviously limits to the powers of film sound design, but a bit more impact on the audience would have been welcome.

THINE EARS SHALL BLEED is offbeat enough to be intriguing. Also, while the points it makes are not original, they are valid.

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