'Witch House: The Legend of Petronel Haxley' (2008) - Mike McCarthy.

Middlesborough filmmaker, Mike McCarthy's low budget occult shocker 'Witch House: The Legend of Petronel Haxley' is both intentionally and unintentionally funny. After a series of amusingly contrived mishaps, a bus load of querulous female students and a libidinous trio of likely lads fatefully find themselves trapped inside an isolated medieval barn. Increasingly disturbed, their desperate attempts to escape the clutches of vengeful, grot-faced witch, Petronel Haxley conjures up a creepy cauldron of 'familiar' frights. Granted, the gore quotient is negligible, and the effects are far from special, but there's a winningly plucky, can-do quality to this wonky witch-fest that held me under its singularly shonky spell!

While the cast clearly features non-actors, they are all certainly game enough, and the bleak, doom-laden atmosphere on the barren, witch-haunted moors engenders some agreeably Wuthering Frights! Mike McCarthy is to be congratulated on making a modestly engaging feature on such a limited budget. While the film's overall appeal might prove selective, I still predict future B-cult status for this earnest, weirdly endearing, not especially frightful, Northern-set indie horror film. If the idea of a roughshod Blair Witch meets Biker Grove B-Horror film tweaks your terror gland, Witch House: The Legend of Petronel Haxley is arguably worth a shot.