Niamh Carolan is Beth in Wintertide (2023)
★★★ out of ★★★★★
🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by John Barnard
Wintertide is an allegory of depression and isolation that uses the backdrop of a zombie-like apocalypse in an endless Manitoba winter. Not exactly the cheeriest of locales. The dwindling Winnipeg population all suffer from depression from a permanent dark spell. It has been 100 days without sunlight. The famed seasonal affective disorder (SAD) has reached new proportions. Much of the population succumbed to becoming mindless “Strays”. These strays put on their parkas and wander aimlessly through the snowy darkness.
Beth (Niamh Carolan) is one of the few people left in her neighborhood. She patrols the streets looking for her missing father (John B. Lowe) and reports back to the neighborhood watch to call for strays to be picked up. Beth swears off taking the prescribed medicine that the government has mandated that is to fight off the depression. She believes this is a hoax. But, she is not immune to the melancholy. In order to stave off her loneliness, she embarks on a series of romantic flings that spark nightmares that appear to leave her lovers to devolve into strays.
Eventually, she figures out that there is a connection between her dreams and those she gets close to. She believes her father to be the key to helping her out. Beth enlists… or rather tricks… her best friend Natalie (Solange Sookram) into finding him. But Beth, in her haste, is sloppy. She hides her motivations and when the truth comes out, the hunt is a bust. Clearly, Beth agitates the strays, and no one knows why. As her allies succumb to her transformative presence, she may have run out of time to find answers, and now the whole community of survivors is at risk.
John Barnard has taken notes from legendary Canadian director David Cronenberg, channeling sex, disease, and mental illness into the recipe for this film. It is not nearly as grotesque as Cronenberg’s work, and perhaps this film could have used some of that shock value. But the Shivers/Rabid DNA is certainly present, and it’s a good tradition worth continuing.
Carolan does a fine job as the troubled Beth, but the character is really hard to root for. She’s selfish and reckless, an anti-vaxxer in a wintry apocalypse. You end up having to root for her salvation and for her to make things right, but getting there is a frustrating process. I do hope to see more of Solange Sookram, whose sparky bartender is the lone bright light in the film. Jeremy Walmsley is fun as the flirtatious Stray catcher, always looking for an opportunity to get a date with Beth.
There is a plausibility to the loneliness. Continual darkness, cold, and isolation can do a negative number on your mind. The great pandemic during a Canadian winter could ruin the best of us. I get it. People are desperate to make a connection, and everyone has been so stir-crazy they would be game for a one-night stand. There’s not a lot of wooing, or getting to know each other. Why get romantic, when shacking up could leave you a husk of your former self? Bummer! The story is well told, but largely humorless. In order to appreciate this film you have to be willing to sink into the depressing atmosphere and the slow-burn neuroses.
The Popcorn Fright Film Festival featured Wintertide in its 2023 Virtual Program. For those of you not familiar with Popcorn Frights, it is one of the biggest genre festivals in the country, with 30 In-Theater films, 25 Virtual Streaming films, and 4 short blocks. The Scariest Things is proud to have been part of the Popcorn Frights Press Pool since 2019.
Wintertide is not rated but is a film that would likely be rated R for sexual content, nudity, and some violence. It is not a gory film, but the intellectual content is suited for a mature audience.
