THE MOOR (2024)

Available On Demand at Amazon Prime from Raven Banner Entertainment!
Directed by Chris Cronin.

Written by Paul Thomas.
Check out the trailer here!!

A young boy named Danny is abducted as a child and never found. Many years later, there’s still no clue as to what happened to the young lad, but his father Bill (David Edward-Robertson) contacts his son’s childhood friend Claire (Sophia La Porta), who was with Danny when he was abducted, with new knowledge of his child’s whereabouts. With the help of a psychic, Bill believes he has finally found the spot where his son’s body lay deep in the misty and dank moor.

Like the Moor itself, THE MOOR is a dark and dour little movie that really captures that sheer hopelessness feeling through its rich atmosphere. Filled with scenes of damp ground and foggy landscapes, this is one movie you’re not going to come out of feeling good. You can almost feel you’re your boots sinking into the ground and the cold creeping in under your collar with this one.

THE MOOR really grabs you right from its opening scene as we see a young Claire and Danny going into a corner store and then all of a sudden Danny is gone. This shocking scene sets the tone of the film as there really are very little clues other than we see Danny run into a person the camera never shows. It starts with a true mystery and because we are there with Claire for the abduction, we empathize with her because though we know something bad has happened, there is really no information provided as to where this boy could be. Its that lack of detail that serves as a persistent itch for both Claire and the viewer all through the film. Something happened to him, but really, no one has any idea why.

The film has some wonderfully comfortable performances from Sophia La Porta and David Edward-Robertson. La Porta’s Claire wants to move on with her life, but feels the obligation to help Bill try to find out what happened to Danny. We see and understand her frustration, though she really doesn’t have a moment where she really can express it. It’s all in the way she looks at Bill and begrudgingly goes on these wild goose chases through the moor to find Danny. David Edward-Robertson is equally strong as Bill, a man overcome with obsession to find his boy, even all these years later. It is heartbreaking to see play out, this man who has thrown his life away dedicated to finding his boy in a place that swallows up anything that enters it.

THE MOOR almost stumbles and falls on its face by the end. It is almost as if the film didn’t have an ending in mind while filming and there was a rash decision to change filming formats at the end to give it more of a shocker ending. The film was scary enough without the switch to found footage by the end, but I must admit, this immersive effect serves to grab the viewer and drag them into the mucky moor. The atmosphere alone worked for me and this shift wasn’t necessary. Still, being a fan of the subgenre, when it does switch to a more handheld POV, I found it equally unnerving. There are some very effective scares in the final reel of THE MOOR. I just don’t know if the shift in formats was necessary.

Nevertheless, THE MOOR is a depressingly effective deep dive into obsession and a life wasted on attempting to find out the unfathomable. It’s not a movie you skip away from with a whistle. This is one that will haunt you long after due to the solid performances and amazing atmosphere. Sure the final scenes set to found footage is a bold choice that may not work 100%, but I was impacted quite a bit by this sad, little movie.