Mandrake [Shudder] Review

3 stars of creepy and very muddy horror.

Mandrake is a 2022 film set in the Norhern Ireland town of Ballylee. It is written Matt Harvey (An Acyt of Defiance) and directed by Lynne Davison, her feature directorial debut. It is a Shudder Original, available now on the streamning service.

“I have to fit you with a monitoring tag. Stays on six months and then we review.”

Cathy (Deirdre Mullins – The Dark Mile, My Name is Emily) is a supervising officer working for the Northern Ireland Probation Office. She tries hard to help her clients, even when they are awkward, like Paul (Peter Heenan – Rogue Agent) who has fallen in love with her.

A case comes into their office that none of the locals want to take on, the release of locally famous killer “Bloody” Mary Laidlaw (Derbhle Crotty – The Cherry Orchard Noble), who murdered her husband with an axe and is used in tales to frighten the local children. Cathy offers to take the job and heads over to her farm to tag her.

Right from the start she comes across as being extremely disturbed and suspicious and when two local children disappear and are subsequently found dead, the local mob goes on the hunt and all eyes turn towards Mary and her son Thomas (Ian Beattie – Blackbird, Game of Thrones). Is she reformed or has she gone back to her old ways?

“I knew a man with hands nice and cold like that. He took me walking on The Moss, put his hands on me.”

Mandrake is an interesting idea for a story, based (as you might guess from the title) around the legend of the Mandrake root. It is quite a slow moving film, and very dark and brooding, with plenty of atmosphere.

The remote locations and creepy woodlands known as “The Moss” all add to the tension . It is also without dooubt one of the muddiest films I have ever seen. It’s also unfortunately quite muddled, a lot of the time it doesn’t seem quite sure where it’s going.

It is a good story and Derbhle Crotty is impressive in the lead, but it could all have been a bit better explained, more backstory, more character development would have added to the effectiveness of the film.

All in all though, a good watch and well worth a look.

“What they got up to, up here, it wasn’t fun and games. It was sick.”

Mandrake is available to stream now on Shudder.