REVIEW: BLACK GOAT

BLACK GOAT is a UK micro-budget folk-horror film written and directed by David Hinds. Now, I'm gonna go on record right now and say that for my money, folk-horror always seems to hit a little harder coming out of Europe for me, mainly because it has the sheer weight of history and clashing cultures behind it.

So this was a creepy, moody little piece of low-budget cinema that worked well on a lot of levels. It opens with a young couple hiking/camping in Blackwood Forest...and let's just say that things there go about as well as one would expect in this type of film.

Shortly thereafter, we are introduced to Ben (Benjamin James Hinds) our thoughtful, scrappy environmental engineer protagonist who is tasked to get some samples from Blackwood pond because of a mysterious plague involving local animals and livestock.

The atmospherics and music are spot-on creepy and dread-evoking. Since we have early on been introduced to the sinister Black Goat entity, which I thought was very well done, (What is it? Is it a person in a mask? Is it something else?) as an audience member there is a feeling already of a serious sense of unease in the air.

Ben starts digging in deeper, visiting the local library and finding a book chock-full of weird tales about the region. He then enlists his brother, Mike (Darren Randall) a slightly alcoholic and unemployed fellow who adds a bit of humor to the story. He needs Mike to help him find Blackwood pond, which leads to some unsettling and very interesting scenes.

Throw in some cult members and some real honest-to-God weirdness, and you have all of the makings of a (no pun intended) low-budget indie cult classic!

The cinematography was by and large well done, and the performances from Hinds and Randall were good. The score was OUTSTANDING, easily some of the best moody, tension-building indie film score that I've had the pleasure of hearing in quite a while.

Some of the visual FX and gore didn't work quite so well, but again, this is micro-budget indie, and while both of those categories were not as polished as you would like, they were certainly inventive, and that counts for a fair bit. This was a slow-burn film with a pace that may not work for everyone, but I quite enjoyed the buildup.

BLACK GOAT is an eerie, moody piece of filmmaking that also had a bit of fun in it, and is a great little entry into the folk-horror genre.