The Dreadful

Set during an unnamed period of war in medieval England, possibly the Wars of the Roses, the film stars Sophie Turner as Anne, a young married woman who lives alone in the woods with her mother-in-law, Morwen (Marcia Gay Harden). The women are dirt poor and survive largely through trading whatever they might be able to grow on their spoilt land or find while foraging in the forest. It is not enough to survive, so Morwen turns to petty theft, from the rich folks who attend the same church, but also, unbeknownst to Anne, the dead bodies of sailors who wash up on their shores. Anne, meanwhile, is haunted by dreams of her beloved husband Seamus (Laurence O’Fuarain), who has been gone at war for far too long. These unsettling dreams begin to shift into waking nightmares: a man in full knight’s armor, riding a white horse, who seems to follow Anne wherever she goes.