Gwen is a 2018 British period folk horror drama film with elements of gothic, supernatural, and psychological horror, written by William McGregor. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018, where the film’s star Eleanor Worthington Cox received the Toronto International Film Festival Rising Star award. The film is produced by Hilary Bevan Jones.
After the Toronto International Film Festival premiere, Gwen was picked up for distribution in the United States and internationally.
Plot
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Gwen, a young farm girl in North Wales, is out playing with her sister Mary. They pass a neighbouring farmhouse where a group of men are tending to some dead bodies. The village doctor says that the entire family died of cholera. Gwen is chastised by her mother for being late and for burning their supper. Her father is not around, for an undisclosed reason. During the night, Gwen wakes and hears a commotion outside. Having failed to wake her mother, Gwen goes outside but is unable to see anything because of the stormy weather.
The next day, as the family gets ready for church, Gwen brings up what she heard the previous night. Her mother changes the subject. As they pass the house where a family died, Gwen sees a man nailing something to the door. During the church service it is revealed that many of the village’s men have left to fight in a war. As they leave, Gwen’s mother has a brief conversation with a man, which seems to leave both of them disturbed. On their return home, they find an animal heart nailed to their front door. The heart is thrown into the fireplace and Gwen’s mother seems to go into a trance as she looks into a candle flame. The following day Gwen finds their crops have spoiled. That night Gwen asks about the man her mother spoke to, and asks if she is planning to sell the house, which her mother denies.
The following day, Gwen awakes to see her mother standing in the pasture among their entire flock of sheep, all of which are dead and mutilated, but one lamb is still barely alive. She kills it with a rock and then tells Gwen to start a fire and burn the sheep’s carcasses, which are now worthless. After cremating the flock, Mother takes the skull of one of the sheep and brings it to the front gate of the farm, where she breaks it into pieces and scatters them.
Gwen goes to investigate the house of the neighbours who died. She observes bloody hand prints throughout the house and rotting food on the table as if something sudden and violent had happened. Mother finds her in the house and it is revealed that the neighbours’ sheep died in a similar way before the family died. Later, Mother chastises Gwen for entering the home of dead people and refuses to listen when Gwen points out the similarities to their own situation. At the same time, she forbids Gwen to return to the neighbors’ house. That night, Gwen recalls happy memories of her and her family (including Father before his disappearance) playing together.
While drying Gwen’s hair after a bath, Mother has a violent seizure. Gwen puts her to bed and takes care of Mary. Waking during a thunderstorm, she sees her mother standing in the bedroom doorway staring at her. The next day, though still weak and ill, Mother insist on going to church, where she experiences another seizure, prompting attention from the village doctor, Doctor Wren. After recovering, Mother and the girls return home; Wren advises Mother to leave. He prescribes three bottles of a tonic wine. As they have no money, Gwen takes one bottle with the promise to pay him back after the next market. Wren says that the payment is due to the Quarry, which owns his practice. With her mother still ill, Gwen goes to retrieve eggs from the hen but finds that a rat has destroyed the eggs. She kills a chicken in order to make supper. That night Gwen dreams of her father, badly injured, trying to make his way home. During supper the next day Gwen entertains Mary and Mother joins them, seeming slightly better. After supper, Gwen finds her mother cutting her arms and letting the blood flow into a bowl.
The following day Gwen bags up vegetables from the pantry to sell at the market. She convinces Mother to stay home. While at the market, the villagers seem to be intentionally ignoring Gwen as she attempts to sell vegetables. She notices she is getting odd, unsettling looks from some people. A young man who smiled at Gwen in church attempts to buy some carrots from her but his father forces him to leave. After an unsuccessful day, Gwen visits Doctor Wren to obtain more of the prescribed tonic wine. She tells him she cannot pay for the bottle he has already given them or for the other two bottles needed. Wren appears to be sympathetic and gives Gwen the two bottles of tonic. As she returns a flash of lightning frightens her horse, which escapes and runs off. It later returns to the farm with severely injured legs, and needs to be put down. Mother attempts to force Gwen to kill the horse, saying it was her fault, but Gwen is unable to do it as it’s not her fault. Mother slits the horse’s throat and leaves it to bleed to death. Men from the Quarry come to the farm to see Mother. Gwen eavesdrops on the conversation, and hears the men claim Gwen stole the tonic (which is Quarry property) and offer to overlook the theft if she sells the land. Mother sends them away and attempts to force Gwen to chop up the horse for meat as punishment. When Gwen refuses, Mother begins angrily hacking off the horse’s head with a hatchet, and has another seizure. That night Gwen has a nightmare about her mother being possessed.
A while afterwards, as they walk on the hillside, mother stops and recalls how how many good friends they used to have around them; now they are the only ones left because the Quarry is buying up the land or forcing people out with threats. Later, at home, Mother instructs Gwen to retrieve a letter from a box and tells her it arrived shortly after Father left. As Gwen reads the letter she discovers that Father is not returning, for reasons that are unclear, and that Mother has been concealing this from the girls.
Gwen finds the man from the Quarry and another man outside the farm gates. The man from the Quarry hands the other man a silver dagger as he looks at the farm. That night, as the girls go to bed, Gwen throws a wooden crucifix into the fireplace. That night she dreams again of her father, injured, trying to return home. The man with the dagger approaches the farmhouse at night. Mother goes outside to investigate and Gwen wakes up and follows. While outside the man approaches them, hits Mother and drags her back to the house, locking Gwen outside. Gwen retrieves a hatchet and breaks the lock. The man attacks Gwen and tries to choke her. Mother seizes the opportunity and slits the man’s throat with the dagger he dropped. Knowing more men are coming, she tells Gwen to get Mary. The man from the quarry arrives with a band of men. He hits Gwen’s mother and pours liquid on her. He sets her on fire and tells the men to burn down the house.
Gwen and Mary escape into the hills and are watching from a distance. Mary asks Gwen where they will go. Gwen tells Mary they will go find their father.
Cast
Eleanor Worthington Cox as Gwen
Maxine Peake as Elen
Richard Harrington as Edward Morris
Mark Lewis Jones as Mr Wynne
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith as Doctor Wren
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