The Dark and the Wicked

Louise and her brother Michael return to their family's isolated farm to be with their dying father. Their mother greets them without welcome, and soon after, she takes her own life in the barn. Michael finds the circumstances of her death troubling, while Louise discovers a diary in which their mother wrote about a malevolent presence drawing nearer. As the siblings remain on the farm, nightmares intrude on their waking hours and the sense that something evil has taken hold of the household grows.

Bryan Bertino wrote the screenplay and directed. The film is his fourth feature, following The Strangers, Mockingbird and The Monster, and precedes Vicious. Marin Ireland plays Louise opposite Michael Abbott Jr. as Michael, with Julie Oliver-Touchstone as the mother and Xander Berkeley among the supporting cast. Bertino produced alongside Sonny Mallhi and Adrienne Biddle.

Released in 2020, the film runs 95 minutes and blends drama, horror and mystery. On IMDb it holds 6.1 out of 10 from around 29,000 votes, and on TMDB it also sits at 6.1 from a much smaller pool of under 600 votes. A critics' rating of 7.5 out of 10 from 106 reviews places it above those audience scores, indicating that reviewers responded more warmly than general viewers.