You Won’t Be Alone (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

You Won’t Be Alone (2022) – G. Stolevski

Folk horror, yes, but not quite what you might expect. Sure, this is a tale of witches who steal babies and drink the blood of slaughtered cottontails – but what makes it different is that, in this film, we take the perspective of the witches and we are encouraged to feel empathy for them. At the start of the film, in 19^th century Macedonia, a horribly scarred witch agrees not to kill a baby when the mother offers instead to deliver the girl to the witch at age 16, claiming that the witch “won’t be alone” if she takes possession of the to-be-teenager later. Fast forward a decade and a half and although the mother has tried to hide the girl away in a cave for many years, the witch still finds her and, through some gory magic, transforms her into a witch as well. Later when they separate after a disagreement, the young witch spies the older witch shape-changing into a dog and learns the ritual which she subsequently uses to transform into various humans that she encounters in the isolated mountain villages of Macedonia. We feel the young witch’s burning curiosity about the life of the humans (female as well as male) and take part in her explorations of their existence – it’s a very sensual film. We also keenly feel her status as an outsider looking in. It seems terrible to be forever on the outside. So, this is not really a genre picture, but something deeper, more original.  It is the feature debut of Macedonia-born Australian director Goran Stolevski who is surely one to keep an eye out for.