THE SEVERED SUN - Mark Reviews Movies

The Severed Sun, Dark Sky Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 15, 2025

The story of writer/director Dean Puckett's The Severed Sun leaves many things vague and many questions unanswered, but this moody little movie about an isolated religious community has an authentic look and a compelling feel to it. It's a shame the whole thing doesn't add up to much on a narrative or thematic level.

Puckett's setting is small village on a surprisingly vast tract of land somewhere or other in England. This community is overseen by a man of faith known only as the Pastor (Toby Stephens), who gives a sermon to his congregation that seems mostly unnecessary for the members of this church but quite important to us.

The group left civilization because of "moral decay" and other such complaints about society, and the community is so reclusive that there isn't a single sign of in what period of history this story takes place. It might as well be a couple hundred years ago for all we know, but since these don't seem to be sort of folks to care about or even believe in the use of technology beyond basic farming equipment, the tale could be set right now, too.

None of that matters to the characters or the plot, though, because they exist solely in this place and within an insulated society that seemingly relies on three things: faith, farming, and fostering generations to come that will continue this way of life. The movie opens with Magpie (Emma Appleton), who soon revealed to be the Pastor's daughter, scheming by way of her disembodied voice and with an unknown co-conspirator to poison her decades-older husband. She does so in his morning refreshment, accompanies him to chop firewood, and, after he collapses dead on the ground, arranges his demise to look like a clumsy accident involving an ax.

Nobody seems entirely convinced of Magpie's story, and considering the logistics of how she stages that "accident," it's little wonder. As suspicions arise and fester among Magpie's neighbors, the Pastor enlists his protégé John (Barney Harris) to help his family through the grief and to maintain their faith. The Pastor will tend to his daughter in her mourning, and John will counsel Magpie's stepson, her dead husband's older son from a previous marriage, David (Lewis Gribben).

There are, as should be expected from a story that begins with murder and revolves around a closely knit and very judgmental group of people, many secrets to be uncovered here. Some are of earthly concern, such as the relationship that Magpie actually has with her stepson.

Others are more mysterious in a supernatural vein, such as Magpie's visions of a shadowy figure—with long, clawed fingers and glowing eyes and horns atop its void of a head—that appears to her in the woods—one that the woman herself seems to summon. Finally, there are odd happenings that seem to combine the two, such as when Magpie appears to read the mind of the young daughter of Andrea (Jodhi May), a fellow fieldworker who is certain that the leader's daughter is up to no good, and sees the girl in the midst of the most awful abuse against her.

Most of this, then, becomes about the rank hypocrisy and hidden corruption of this cloistered society, with Magpie positioning herself as a kind of righteous avenger of those wrongs—albeit, it seems, by way of a potentially wicked or even demonic presence. One foul deed or false pretense begets another here, as the Pastor only seems to care more about his daughter's future marriage prospects than her well-being, John enjoying his proximity to Magpie's father because it makes him an ideal candidate to be that second husband, and Andrea ignoring the terrible sins being committed under her own roof to lead a witch hunt against Magpie. That the neighbor might actually be correct about Magpie's connection to an evil force beyond comprehension is, of course, a bit of a complication here.

In theory, that puts forth several questions here about who's right, who's wrong, and whose secretive sinful acts outweigh the others in terms of who deserves punishment. The implication that Magpie has damned herself, is justified in her bond with that thing called "the Beast" in the credits, or some combination of both, though, remains just that—an implication. Puckett presents a few moral quandaries within the minimal scope of this plot, but as with the background information about and explanation of any spiritual philosophy for this community, those ideas remain ambiguous.

That mainly leaves the atmosphere of the movie, which unsettling in those depictions of otherworldly and earthbound evils, as well as oppressive in how the hierarchy and attitudes of this community offer no viable means of escaping it. Most of this takes place in the bright light of day amidst the fields and forest of the village, and it's impressive that cinematographer Ian Forbes imbues these picturesque images with a sense of foreboding. A notable exception is a nightmare scene that's shot with a night-vision camera—perhaps through the eyes of the Beast, which can see through the literal darkness as well as the figurative kind within these people.

That feeling certainly carries The Severed Sun quite a bit. Once it becomes clear that Puckett is solely concerned with the mood of this tale over everything else, though, it simply doesn't take the material very far.

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