The Path

A rough road

A quirky bit of folk horror, writer-director Tom Archdeacon’s The Path revolves around adult sisters Abigail and Caitlin White (Tess Hanna, Taylor Caldwell), both of whom grew up on their parents’ small farm. Abigail is the legal inheritor, but it’s Caitlin who feels a deep connection to it. Neither is equipped to actually run a working farm, so clearly the sensible move would be to sell it and split the profits. But Caitlin loves the place, even though there’s a whole lot of weirdness going on in and around the nearby town.

First and foremost, dweeby local schoolteacher Tim (Brian McManamon) appears to have a creepy fixation on both young women, and he hits on Abigail shamelessly. There’s also some spooky local history involving a house that was supposedly owned by a witch and remains a popular spot for local teenagers to cruise and dare each other to go inside. On top of all that, though unbeknownst to Caitlin and Abigail, the town is frequented by a cult of Satanists — big-city folk who practice their eldritch rituals out in the nearby woods, much to the dismay of locals who wish the whole kit and caboodle would take their disturbing practices elsewhere. Also, there’s a pale figure in a black robe who keeps appearing when the movie needs a sudden boogeyman shock, and after screening the film once and then watching a second time to check details, I’m still unsure if that was a real, physical presence, or a ghastly, spectral vision, or simply a trauma-induced recurring hallucination.