In She Will, Alice Krige unlocks the secrets of a whole lot of ooze

Is it sludge? Is it goop? Is it ooze? Hard to know exactly what to call the thick rivers of gurgling black slime that appear time and again in She Will, the eerie, riveting debut feature from sculptor and photographer Charlotte Colbert. It’s also hard to describe what exactly happens in the movie, other than “woman recovering from surgery does some weird stuff in her sleep.” But it’s the film’s mercurial nature, its hazy dreamlike logic, that makes it so extraordinary.

For the first 10 minutes or so one might think this is set generations ago, as we join Veronica Ghent (a marvelous Alice Krige in a tour-de-force performance) and her nurse Desi (Kota Eberhardt, exuding kindness) on a private railcar. It’s only when they get to a distant Scottish spa that we get a first glimpse at a cellphone and hear someone (Rupert Everett as a boisterous artiste) mention something about his website.

Ghent, a former actress, is at the retreat following a double mastectomy, though when she realizes she won’t be alone in the main manor she and Desi take up residence in a cottage not far away. A mansplaining Everett, leading an en plein air session, tells us that on these very grounds, years ago, a group of witches were burned to death. As such, the soil is rich in ash and, as we’ll soon see, either grant supernatural powers or initiate some of the freakier psychedelic hallucinations put on film in some time.

It would be interesting to crack out the stopwatch to see just how much of She Will’s running time consists of dialogue-free, non-narrative montages, fades, and superimpositions of extreme skin close-ups, ripped earth, worms, snails, eyeballs, oily liquid, galaxies, and more eyeballs. Clint Mansell’s original score matches the heady visuals (echoing, at times, some of Philip Glass’ operas with “ahh ahh” choruses) and cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay bathes the picture in a rich blue sheen.

These kaleidoscopic images mostly come at night, when Ghent is off astrally projecting herself around the woods or, most bizarrely, to the studio audience of a talk show where a celebrated film director (Malcolm McDowell) is announcing a remake of his landmark 1969 film. Ghent starred in the original when she was an early teen, and was groomed by him.

“It was a different era,” McDowell mumbles at some pointed questions, but it’s clear that these visions plus the power drawn from hallowed, witchy ground are leading to an act of vengeance. And it’s going to involve a lot of black glop. (Not since Panos Cosmatos’ Beyond The Black Rainbow has muck had such resonance! Or been a conduit for some kind of freaky, telekinetic transference!)

Amidst all this comes another angle: a lot of this movie is funny. Most of that is due to Krige’s reactions to Rupert Everett flapping around the bozos in his entourage. Krige gets a lot out of each reaction shot.

The 68-year-old South African actress, likely best known for playing the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact, is mesmerizing in the teetering-on-the-edge-of-madness role. In the daytime she is sharp-tongued and in charge, but at night, as with all good folk horror tales, she is swept up by greater forces. There’s something about the childlike look in her eyes that brings everything into focus.

Does Colbert’s film snap together at the end like a logic puzzle? No, absolutely not. (Here’s a good spot to say the film boasts Dario Argento as an executive producer.) But for a swirl of emotion, She Will will take you on a ride.