Written and directed by Ten Shots’ Gordon Shoemaker Foxwood, Wild Eyed and Wicked is a slow-burning journey into multigenerational trauma and portrays the harrowing reality of innate mental illness and the devastating effects it has on families.
With a finely balanced blend of horror and fantasy, this movie offers something a little different to the usual cookie-cutter horror themes, and dares to lay its story out at a slow and steady pace; taking its time to tell its tale. While this approach isn’t to everyone’s taste (or mine, usually), Wild Eyed and Wicked carries with it a certain artistic flair that engages the viewer and draws them into its wonderful world of magic and fantastical creatures.
We are offered insight into the protagonist’s plight through her sessions with her therapist (played by veteran actress, Colleen Camp). Here, the movie finds a way to tell Lily’s (Molly Kunz) story and to delve deeper into her innermost thoughts and feelings. I thought these sessions to be a wonderfully creative way to lay the movie’s foundations and to keep us in the loop.
While Wild Eyed and Wicked has traces of horror elements, they are creatively sewn together with a theme of fantasy and folklore. With both of these topics being close to my heart, I found a lot to enjoy during the movie’s ninety-nine-minute runtime. However, there are a few scenes that overstep the mark and take up just a tad too much screen time.
Wild Eyed and Wicked – Storyline
At just five-years old, Lily witnessed her mother killing herself by a bullet to the temple. For 20 years, the traumatic event has haunted her; plaguing her dreams with flashbacks and monstrous images to a point she wakes nightly, thrashing, kicking and screaming. When her estranged father reaches out to her, she decides to put their differences aside and visits him at his home. Here, she resolves her differences with her father – a disgraced professor of history – and forgives him for his absence in her life.
During her stay, Lily unearths some books depicting creatures of folklore and telling their tales. Noticing a page has been ripped from one of the books, she confronts her father to discover there is far more to unearth about her mother’s death and sets out to destroy the entity that has been torturing her family for generations. Using the historical texts and the mythical tales as a guide, can Lily face her fears and free her family from their depression-inducing curse?
A Little More Creativity in the Costume Department Wouldn’t Have Gone Amiss in Wild Eyed and Wicked
While the knight costume that Kunz dons to face her battle with depression itself is as awesome as most things medieval, the budget could have been better-used to make the demon a little more convincing. Where I was expecting some kind of grotesque monstrosity with horns and a barbed tail, I was instead met with a blonde woman with a dirty face and yellow eyes, accompanied, of course, by a disembodied voice that incites giggles as opposed to fear.
I know this seems like a trivial qualm, but the “monster” is so anticlimactic and lacking in any form of real creativity. It’s almost like the budget was all used on the cool-assed suit of armor and left little to conjure up any sort of devilish fiend.
Wild Eyed and Wicked Summary
Despite the slow-burning pace and the disappointing demon, I found a lot to enjoy in Wild Eyed and Wicked. As a fan of fantasy movies, it was refreshing to watch a movie that joined my two favorite genres in unison. However, there isn’t a lot here that will keep you up at night or cowering behind your sofa.
