‘The Wretched’ shows that true horror hides in plain sight | The Haunted Column

Watching 'The Wretched' is like stepping into a summer you didn’t know you’d fear. It starts almost casually: a teenage boy, Ben, is sent to spend time with his dad in a sleepy coastal town. Nothing seems out of place at first, until it is. The movie doesn’t announce its horror with flashing lights or sudden screams. Instead, it quietly builds a feeling that something is off. A neighbour who seems perfectly friendly, a backyard that feels just a bit too shadowy, and slowly you realise the horror isn’t just in monsters—it’s in the evil hiding in plain sight.

What makes The Wretched interesting is that it’s surprisingly relatable for a horror movie. Ben is a kid stuck in a grown-up world, trying to navigate his parents’ divorce, his own curiosity, and a town full of secrets. His growing suspicion about the strange neighbour, who turns out to be a witch, is not played for laughs or cheap scares. It’s that slow burn of “something is very wrong here” that gets under your skin. Watching him investigate, and the way the adults around him dismiss what he senses, feels disturbingly familiar: the world doesn’t always see the danger you see, and that isolation is terrifying in its own right.

The witch herself is unsettling, but not in a showy, CGI-heavy way. She’s terrifying because she’s insidious, blending into the world around her. You never get a sense that she’s just a costume or a monster—the way the film presents her, you feel she could exist in a quiet suburb near you. There’s an almost fairy-tale logic to her evil, which makes her feel like folklore has bled into the modern world, and that’s a rare thing in horror these days.

Ben’s journey is also quietly emotional. His interactions with Piper Curda’s character, a local girl who helps him navigate the strange events, are some of the film’s best moments. They’re not romantic or dramatic in a typical teen way. They’re just two kids trying to make sense of something they can barely comprehend. That human thread grounds the supernatural, and it’s what makes the scares feel earned instead of forced.

The tension is relentless but subtle. There are moments where you almost forget to breathe, not because of loud bangs or jump scares, but because the film is patient with its fear. Watching it, I found myself holding my breath in everyday places: a backyard, a boat on the water, even the corner of a room. It’s the kind of movie that lingers with you—makes you wonder if shadows are hiding things you can’t see.

'The Wretched' isn’t about blood or cheap thrills. It’s about fear as a creeping, everyday thing, and the way children—and by extension, we—perceive it. By the end, it’s not just the witch you’re afraid of; it’s the quiet, lurking sense that the world is bigger, stranger, and darker than it seems. And for a horror movie that actually makes you feel something beyond a startled scream, that’s rare.