Drawing comparisons to The Witch, SCREAMBOX Exclusive folk-horror film Breathing In streams December 3. Set against the backdrop of war in South Africa, the chamber piece finds a wounded general seeking refuge with an herbalist and her mysterious daughter.

I remember being very scared of The Witch (Or The VVitch, if you want to do that thing, I guess). Not because it was horrifying or made me hide under my covers or anything like that; I was frightened that I wasn’t going to like it.

A lot of times with supposed horror “classics”–and especially with modern ones–I find they fall flat for me. Something about them just won’t end up working. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is too poorly acted; Hereditary is too boring and predictable; Midsommar is too everything bad.

And so it was that I finally watched The Witch last year, and about half an hour in, I was afraid… afraid I found another beloved horror movie that wasn’t my cup of tea. But then it all turned around in the second and third acts, and I ended up giving the movie a great score on Letterboxd. The performances were powerhouse, and the story ended up being creepy and off-putting after all. I ended up being glad I saw it.

So to see a new Screambox movie come down the pike saying it draws comparisons to The Witch… well, that’s pretty high praise if you ask me. Particularly if those comparisons are to the back end of that referenced film and not the slightly more tedious first half.

So here we are with Breathing In, a South African film that takes place during the war in 1901. The story sees an Agitant checking up on his grievously wounded general who he left in the care of a purported medicine woman, an older lady who agreed to look after and try to heal him.

During his stay, the agitant ends up taken with the herbalist’s daughter, a mysterious young woman who spends most of her days strapped upright to a chair and being refused sleep. She is very weak from some strange illness, and she can barely stand, let alone walk.

During the periods where the mother leaves the room, the agitant grows closer to the girl, including some relatively uncomfortable scenes where he kisses her, and the viewer is not entirely sure it’s with the girl’s consent or appreciation. He claims to want to spend his life with the girl, but he is very put off by her mother, and he is torn between leaving the house and returning to the war or staying with the girl.

As the night wears on, he is told by the herbalist how the girl has come to be this way, and what he must do to help her stay healthy…

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ The eerie score really adds to the atmosphere of the movie. It’s extremely strings-heavy, and it plays through most of the film. It’s a very potent musical mood that feels like it is surrounding you and bearing down upon you.

The camera shots and the angles really work with the music, as well. During the movie’s tensest moments, the camera will flash between scenes or slightly shift diagonally into a Dutch angle. There are some classic directorial choices that pair so well with what you are hearing; you can tell the craft of filmmaking is being paid attention to here.

+ The ending is fulfilling after everything you have sat through to get there. There is something to be said about how it’s a shame that it’s only ever even foreshadowed in the early third act, but regardless of that, it’s a strong ending that really gives the flick its horror credentials.

I obviously don’t want to spoil anything here, so I won’t. But if you make it to the third act in this one, you can prepare to be rewarded.

– Michele Burgers’ performance is supposed to come across as creepy and unsettling. And it does, at times! But at other moments, she is so unintentionally funny. I am not sure if it’s her choice or the direction, but it takes you out of the mood. She hisses and yowls and makes visceral noises that are just a sconch too silly for the scene in which they appear. If she had pared it back just a hair, they could have delivered the impact for which they were looking.

It’s a shame, because at other moments, she really can be the strongest part of the movie. She is unsettling and strange, and she keeps both the viewer and the agitant on their toes. But then she will go and make an exaggerated breathing sound, and I just kind of lost it.

– The movie is far too long for what it is. It crosses over the one hundred minute mark before it’s all said and done, and there is just no reason for that. You could have told this story in seventy-to-eighty minutes, easily. But it meanders on in the first two acts, and I personally found it hard to keep paying attention when so little was happening.

OVERALL

Breathing In is well made, and I dig that the director (Jaco Bouwer) put so much care into the cinematic elements of his work. I just wish he had put as much concern into editing down the story aspects and making a more manageable length for what the tale is.