The British witch hunt thriller “The Reckoning” is a well-meaning, but consistently staid horror movie about institutionalized misogyny, and the women who have to survive it. Set in 1665, which an opening credit tells us is the “year of the great plague,” “The Reckoning” follows Grace Haverstock (Charlotte Kirk, who co-wrote the movie with director Neil Marshall), a newly widowed mother who is accused, imprisoned, and tortured for imaginary crimes of witchcraft.
Grace’s accusers are all vicious humanoid cardboard cut-outs, and her trials are all obviously gross without ever being enlightening or varied enough to also be relentless. I’m often an apologist for this sort of neo-grindhouse genre exercise, whose tired horror-fantasy tropes over-stress the cyclical nature of real world injustice, but “The Reckoning” isn’t mean or uplifting enough to warrant much of a defense.