Disclaimer: I’m a fan of Neil Marshall’s prior work; specifically, the feature The Descent. For me, it’s brutal in all the right ways.

Marshall says he is glad to be back in the U.K. after eight years in Los Angeles and extensive travel in America. He’s been inspired being in Kent, in the south after growing up by Newcastle, in the north. He’s re-transplanted himself in a different place and these are different times from when he made his breakout film The Descent, which premiered at a certain film festival in Utah. It’s a horror movie about a group of women who go caving and learn secrets about themselves and each other; and about the long-buried, hidden, dark history of America. The Descent was filmed entirely in the U.K., doubling as North Carolina.

Marshall’s latest project is The Reckoning starring Charlotte Kirk, his co-writer on this screenplay. It’s another feminist one. Marshall says that he was called “the token female” by his workmates during the making of The Descent and that moniker is one that he wears as a badge of honor. The Reckoning has us follow Grace Haverstock in the U.K. in the year 1665; she’s accused of being a witch and put through all kinds of undeserved hardship after her husband dies of the terrible disease going around. Grace represents more than 500,000 women in Europe and the United States who were tortured after being accused of witchcraft in real life; the accusation was a tactic used to strip outspoken women fighting the patriarchy of their power and their will by making their lives miserable in every way imaginable.

According to Marshall, "the world still hasn't moved on from this ingrained misogyny." With even more emphasis, he reminds us that "this shit was going down since 1665 and a whole lot longer before that."

It’s plague times in this story. People are dying on a massive scale, left and right. Bodies cannot be buried fast enough. It’s very much like the worst of the COVID-19 crisis we’ve just gone through. The writing and shooting of this project took place between 2018 and 2019, before the onset of the pandemic. Marshall and Kirk had no idea their film would echo our present and recent past in more ways than one.

In this tale, Grace survives advances from the local squire, played by Steven Waddington. For not accepting him sexually, Squire Pendleton hauls Grace off to jail. While incarcerated, Grace meets another woman thrown in for the crime of starving. This woman stole bread and is being persecuted for being poor. Great nod to labor here and our current day, where this has not changed. Grace is flogged. She is waterboarded. They won’t let her sleep; whenever she nods off, they throw a bucket of water in her face. Her jailers put her in an iron mask. They do much worse to her and miraculously, she will still not confess to being a witch. In her dreams she sees her deceased husband and the devil himself. 

Another set of themes that The Reckoning hits upon is betrayal and the blindness of some who side with their oppressors. There’s another woman who was burned at the stake for the same “crime of witchcraft,” who somehow survives and then works for the status quo, torturing Grace.

Betrayal is also central in The Descent. I ask Marshall for tips on how to handle betrayal in real life. He says he values loyalty and if things go south with people, he’d ask for a chat over a couple beers to try and clear things up. If nothing progresses, he suggests shutting them out. Luckily in his movies, the betrayed get graphic physical vindication that’s even more satisfying than shutting out those disloyal to their own kind. There are some fantastic scenes where some of the women in the film stand up for themselves and where the bad guys get what’s coming to them. I don’t want to spoil those for you here. 

Is this a revenge story? Yes, yes it is and you will feel good about a lot of things that happen in it that remind you that a woman can survive many things in life that come at her, though she shouldn’t have to. 

The Reckoning was shot in Budapest, Hungary (as will be Marshall’s next film, The Lair). He’s back to making the upcoming one a monster movie. Budapest will now double for Afghanistan. Marshall also hints at a sequel to Dog Soldiers; but alas, nothing to follow The Descent: Part 2. We can hope for a follow-up to The Reckoning, as Grace Haverstock’s story is far from over. It may be just beginning, now that she understands her own powers more than ever.

The Reckoning is available exclusively on Shudder May 13.