Thine Ears Shall Bleed Digital Review

4 star creepy and atmospheric folk horror.

Thine Ears Shall Bleed is a 2024 American folk horror thriller, written and directed by Ben Bigelow, in his extremely impressive directorial feature debut, which shows great promise.

It is available to stream on UK Digital Platforms from 15th July, courtesy of Miracle Media.

“You have an inner sight, my son. No-one sees the Lord better than you. Jesus sits at the right hand of God, that’s the path we shall take.”

It’s the 1860’s in the American West and the Reverend Ezekiel Thatcher (Andrew Hovelson – Stranger in the Dunes, The Magnificent Meyersons) and his wife Sarah (Hannah Cabell – The Surrogate, Luce) are driving their wagon through the woods, high in the mountains, along with their blind son Luke (Duke Huston) and teenage daughter Abigail (Lea Zawada – The Librarians).

Their mission is to collect a new organ for the church, so that Ezekiel can expand his flock. Abigail is to learn to play it and also to sing the hymns. As they travel, they find a fork in the road, with some pretty white lilies growing there. They take the right fork, but soon realise that was a mistake, as they run out of road and decide to make camp for the night.

The following morning, their horses are gone, stranding them there. They keep hearing a loud but wondrous noise, sometimes loud enough to make the ears bleed. They believe this to be the voice of God, choosing them to carry out his work and the plan changes to building a new church, here in the woods. This becomes an obsession for Ezekiel, however some of the others have a less positive experience. They also meet someone else out here, a botanist named Woodrow Booker (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe – Lazy Eye, The Tiger Hunter), who claims to have been here for a long time.

What is the mysterious sound and is whatever resides in these woods really as holy as they believe it to be?

“Did you hear that curious sound again? It was a loud ringing, joined with the sound of an organ.”

Thine Ears Shall Bleed is a good solid entry into the ‘lost in the woods’ genre and I enjoyed the setting, allowing for lots of period costumes and very formal language. The actors, most of whom are relative newcomers, did very well with the script and with the language (although there was a slight modern accent creeping in here and there), but overall very good.

The location is nothing short of spectacular and full use is made of this, with sweeping vistas, imposing mountains and sinister woods adding greatly to the sense of isolation.

If I have a complaint (and this is entirely my own fault), it does bear a striking resemblance to the video for Amish Paradise by Weird Al, which made it hard for me to take it seriously on occasion. The story is also perhaps a little confused in places. There aren’t buckets of blood, but the gore, when it happens, is pretty good and I really enjoyed the ending, which was a twist but didn’t rely on cheap thrills, rather leaving the next phase of the story to your own imagination, which I appreciated.

An interesting and entertaining film, well worth a watch.

“It is here that I am to build a church. A grand church, filled with the sounds and the goodness of the Lord. Thus have I been called upon.”