To Fire You Come at Last (Frightfest 2023)(Review)

Throughout the English countryside, there are roads built for the dead. Very few of these paths still exist in any easily detectable way, with many of them now overgrown and forgotten to time, but there was a time when these “corpse roads” were a necessity for remote rural communities, marking the way for pallbearers to deliver mortal remains to their final resting places. Naturally, the morbid purpose of these routes – combined with the long periods of time that mourners would spend walking in the company of the departed – led to the commonly-held belief that the “lych-ways” were haunted by restless spirits, will-o’-the-wisps, and perhaps even the devil himself.

Considering all of this you would think that the setting would have been used for at least one horror film by now, but it seems as though To Fire You Come at Last is the first picture to set foot upon that accursed stretch of soil. Brought to you by Severin Films (distributors of cult features and the production company behind Kier-La Janisse’s fantastic folk horror documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched), and Directed by British writer and filmmaker Sean Hogan (The Devil’s Business), this 42-minute black-and-white chiller appears to be a throwback to the classic ghost stories of yesteryear (not least being those produced by the BBC throughout the ‘70s as spooky Yuletide viewing). Following the success of the A24 mega-hit Midsommar, folk horror has slowly but surely been making its way back into the corpse light. Unfortunately, many recent attempts to capture the black magic of old have lacked that sense of place required by the subgenre, so does To Fire You Come at Last walk proudly where others have stumbled? Unfortunately, I’d be inclined to say “No, not really”.

To Fire You Come at Last follows a four-man coffin-bearing party as they deliver the remains of their recently deceased friend through the fields and forests of 17th-century England. As the procession continues through the night, tensions rise and secrets are revealed about each member’s relationship to the unlucky stiff. Superstition, fear and jealousy reign as the group’s predicament slowly devolves into a stalemate that is more “Waiting for Godot” than it is “A Warning to the Curious”. Half-heard tales of headless black dogs and less-than-friendly ghosts that supposedly frequent the trail do little to lighten the mood, but where the BBC may have made effective use of a low production budget to depict televisual ghouls, To Fire You Come at Last goes one step further by deciding not to show much at all.

Superstition, fear and jealousy reign as the group’s predicament slowly devolves into a stalemate that is more “Waiting for Godot” than it is “A Warning to the Curious”.

You, too, can be part of a 1600s funerary procession, and by that I mean you get to experience all the joys of watching four men who hate each other carry a corpse through the woods for almost an hour.

Of course, I may be being too harsh as To Fire You Come at Last is a beautifully shot movie that gorgeously captures the landscapes of rural Britain in vivid black-and-white. ‘Tis a pity then, that the material at hand doesn’t make proper use of said landscapes, and dialogue seems largely confined to expository and often repetitive bickering between our four lead cast members – some of which seems to have been written for questionable comic purposes. The film’s sense of black humour could have worked had it not actively detracted from the sense of gothic dread that To Fire You Come at Last’s narrative depends upon. As funny as it is to watch a man relieve himself by the side of a country road with a comically large stream of urine spurting out from under his cloak, the choice to feature said image at the same time as the first sighting of the film’s only on-screen ghost (not to mention its primary source of tension and terror), was probably not the greatest move.

With its middle-English dialogue and period setting, a theatrical performance style is expected (and welcomed), when approaching this kind of material. Sadly, and with all due respect to the very talented actors involved, the majority of the performances in To Fire You Come at Last come off as a little, pardon the pun, stiff. The only real exception to this is James Swanton (writer and star of Frankenstein’s Creature), who brings a pleasant jolt of perverse energy to his character Ransley – a deadbeat who has walked the corpse road many times in exchange for money to feed his crippling alcoholism.

Ransley is, by far, the most well-developed and interesting character in To Fire You Come at Last. His lower-class status leads to him being shunned and looked down upon by the men who hired him, even before any dark secrets come to light, but the film’s themes of classism and prejudice are only lightly touched upon, and never really come to any satisfactory or meaningful conclusion. This also applies to the film’s approach to depicting the supernatural, which leaves the promise and potential of its concept almost entirely unfulfilled, and leads to a resolution that, rather than burning bright, merely smoulders.

Folk horror die-hards may find something more to appreciate in this short stroll through a field in England, but I found To Fire You Come at Last to have a little too much in common with a headless spectral hound. All bark, albeit a bark you can only faintly hear on the coldest and darkest of Autumn nights, and no bite.

Robyn’s Archive – To Fire You Come at Last