A Haunting In Cawdor Tries (& Fails) To Make Shakespeare Scary

A Haunting In Cawdor Tries (& Fails) To Make Shakespeare Scary

A Haunting In Cawdor from 2015 tries to make a horror movie out of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth but it fails to raise many scares.

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A Haunting In Cawdor Tries (& Fails) To Make Shakespeare Scary

A Haunting In Cawdor tries its best to make Shakespeare scary, but can’t quite pull it off. William Shakespeare is rightly considered one of the greatest writers who ever lived, with some of his most iconic works including Romeo And Juliet, Hamlet, and Much Ado About Nothing. Centuries after his death his work is still being performed constantly in theatres and adapted for movies and TV shows.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s turn in Romeo + Juliet was his first breakout role, and the success of that film helped bring Shakespeare’s work to a new generation. This includes 10 Things I Hate About You – an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew – and Get Over It, a modern-day take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. While some of the playwright’s work could be remarkably bloody and violent, there’s little of his work that could be regarded as outright horror.

Maybe the closest he came to a horror tale was his play Macbeth, where a Scottish general is told by three witches he’s destined to become King – but first, he must commit a brutal murder. The story soon descends into madness and bloodshed as Macbeth becomes something of a monster himself. Macbeth plays a key role in A Haunting In Cawdor, a 2015 horror movie. The story follows a young woman named Vivian who is allowed to serve out the rest of her prison sentence at a work release theater program. This is run by a failed Broadway director (Cary Elwes, Saw), who is staging a performance of Macbeth and casts Vivian as Lady Macbeth – which may not be the brightest plan since she was imprisoned for murder, and is still suffering from deep-rooted trauma.

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Macbeth itself is said to be a haunted play, with witches supposedly cursing its first performance in the 17th century, and those performing the play refuse to utter the name of it aloud in theatres. This concept could be interesting for a horror movie to explore, but A Haunting In Cawdor is a dull, slow affair. While the play unfolds Vivian sees visions of hooded figures and other spooky happenings, but its never particularly creepy or engaging. Lead actress Shelby Young (Wolfenstein: Youngblood) and Cary Elwes both do good work, but the movie’s plodding pace makes it very hard to get invested.

The jumpscares in A Haunting In Cawdor feel like they’re there out of obligation, and the glum seriousness of the material means there’s no humor to be found. In 1973 Vincent Price (Edward Scissorhands) starred in Theater Of Blood, a British horror movie about a Shakespearian actor taking revenge on snobby critics. That film isn’t particularly scary either, but it’s having a lot of fun and features some surprisingly gruesome deaths. A Haunting In Cawdor doesn’t even have that going for it, and while its ambition is admirable, it just doesn’t work.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/haunting-cawdor-shakespeare-horror-movie/

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