mosquitodragon’s review published on Letterboxd:
You could argue that The Murmuring brings nothing new to the table as far as haunted house stories go, and the film-making largely conforms to tried and true formula as far as the horror set pieces are concerned. Having said that, these moments are at least effective - the scene in the bathroom was particularly spooky, I thought.
And I was ready to dismiss this as yet another bit of "elevated" horror, which in practice tends to equate to slow-moving, fairly self-indulgent dramas about people being really depressed about some sort of life trauma. Horror has increasingly become a sort of grief porn - everyone wants to make Don't Look Now but not everyone is Nicolas Roeg, if you know what I mean.
Ultimately, however, I was won over to this one - primarily because of the excellent performances from Essie Davis and Andrew Lincoln. The slow burn pulls off the tricky task of actually building sympathy and depth to the characters - a married couple burying their grief at the (thankfully rather unspecified) loss of their child by throwing themselves into their ornithology. It's a nice metaphor - two people caged by grief fixating on the study of birds, symbols of lightness and freedom from earthly tethers. And the birds are used in one final exhilarating sequence as the key to unlocking catharsis - any doubts I had were blown away at that moment, because it really works as both metaphor and as cinematic sensation.
This was the last episode of Cabinet of Curiosities I had left, and I have to say - one of the best horror anthology series ever made? Hard to think of a better one. Not every single episode was a winner, but the quality was still pretty consistent, and there were a few moments of brilliance. I was massively impressed by this. Well worth checking out the series if you're a horror fan and that Netflix subscription is burning a hole in your pocket anyway.
