The Banished is directed by Joseph Sims-Dennett, and the main cast includes Meg Clarke, Leighton Cardno, and Gautier Pavlovic-Hobba, Tony Hughes and Diane Smith.
My Thoughts On The Banished
The Banished opens with a promising enough mystery, where Grace (Meg Clarke) wakes up in a tent to find that her hiking partner is missing. A familiar but effective setup, that hooks you in just enough to make you want to know what happened.
Unfortunately though, the film doesn’t stick with this mystery and structure, but ends up working against the story it's trying to tell, as the film doesn't progress naturally, and instead it constantly jumps back and forth, which is fine and all, but it isn't between just the past and present, but also between entirely different storylines that haven’t had any time to develop.
What starts as a missing-person story quickly becomes a family drama, a religious trauma story, a mystery, and a survival horror, and it tries to be all of those at once without really laying the groundwork for any of them.
So what’s actually going on? Good question.
Grace has come back to her small, tight-lipped hometown after her father dies, and it turns out, Dad was an abusive religious leader, and Grace left years ago to escape that environment. Her brother wasn’t so lucky, as he got kicked out, ended up on the streets, and now no one knows where he is.
Grace wants answers, but her uncle (Tony Hughes) and just about everyone else in town shut her down when she starts asking questions. There’s this vague backstory about several townspeople having mysteriously vanished over the years, but no one wants to talk about it. It’s all very Don’t ask, don’t tell, especially if it involves cults.
That should been the emotional heart of the film, about Grace reckoning with her past, trying to find her brother, uncovering what the town is hiding. But instead of exploring and focusing on that, the movie keeps cutting back to her present-day search in the woods, where she’s wandering around alone, hearing strange noises, and talking to someone over a walkie-talkie.
That character is Mr. Green (Leighton Cardno), her missing hiking partner, though we don’t even meet him properly until well into the film which makes it hard to care about him or their relationship. He’s absent for so long he might as well be a metaphor.
The frustrating part is that there’s a lot of potential in this setup. The idea of a woman being lured back to a town full of secrets, chasing after a sibling who’s fallen through the cracks is perfect ground for a slow-burn psychological horror.
But the film just doesn’t build anything before trying to cash it in. Key information about Grace’s background, the town’s religious community, and her brother’s disappearance all arrive way too late. By the time we understand the stakes, the horror’s already begun, so we’re watching creepy scenes without really understanding why they matter.
The film also struggles on a visual level. The editing is disjointed, sometimes to the point of being confusing. There are scenes where action just seems to happen with no buildup, no clear cause, and you’re just left trying to piece together what you just saw.
One moment, Grace is running. The next, she’s hurt. Was it an attack? Did she fall? Did something supernatural happen? The film won’t tell you, or if it does, it’s buried under a flurry of cuts that make it impossible to follow.
There are also some weirdly avoidable visual choices as well, like Grace trying to hide in a forest while wearing a bright yellow coat. It might be symbolic, but practically speaking, she sticks out like a traffic cone. It pulls you out of the scene because it’s so obviously impractical for someone who’s supposed to be avoiding danger.
When Mr. Green finally shows up, we learn that he’s been helping people on the margins of society find refuge in some kind of off-grid commune in the woods. Grace assumes her brother might be there, and she follows him deeper into the forest. Whether or not you trust him depends on how many horror films you’ve seen. (Spoiler: it’s not a great idea.)
The final act does manage to pull some of it together. Once the film stops jumping timelines and finally commits to revealing what’s actually going on, it gets a bit unsettling. There’s a moment where the truth lands, and you go, Oh. now I get it.
The problem is it comes way too late. The emotional payoff is dulled because we’ve spent so much time lost in the structure instead of connecting with the characters.
In the end, The Banished feels like a solid horror short trapped inside a confused feature-length script. There’s an interesting idea here, but it’s buried under a structure that tries too hard to be clever and ends up muddling everything.
If the filmmakers had told the story straight, or at least found a way to weave the timelines together with more intention, this could’ve been really good. Instead, it’s an ambitious film that forgets the basics.
There is some strong atmosphere and a few chilling moments though, but by the time they arrive, it’s hard not to feel like the film lost the thread somewhere in the edit.
There is some strong atmosphere and a few chilling moments though, but by the time they arrive, it’s hard not to feel like the film lost the thread somewhere in the edit.