‘The Dreadful’ Review: Certainly Not Dreadful
It’s a Game of Thrones reunion in Natasha Kermani’s (Abraham’s Boys) The Dreadful. Set during the Wars of the Roses, Kermani’s gothic feature is fog-drenched and deeply dour. It also happens to star Sophie Turner and Kit Harington, though as lovers this time, not siblings (well, at least in Game of Thrones, that’d be fine, too). It also stars Marcia Gay Harden in one of her best roles in years. The Dreadful, despite the title, is anything but.
Jago (Harington) brings news of Seamus’ (Laurence O’Fuarain) death to the deceased’s mother, Morwen (Harden), and wife, Anne (Turner). Their life is a reclusive one, marred not only by the death of the patriarchal son and husband, but by abject poverty and the insidious wave of devout Christianity fluttering around the moors. It’s cathedrals and smoke, loud homilies and contextual fear. Something is not quite right, par for the Gothic course, and Harden and Turner gamely sell their sheer desperation.
It’s Harden’s oppressive nature that signals the first big shift. She’s far from the saintly mother-in-law she ostensibly pantomimes as, and Turner is grappling with her own burgeoning fear, principally on account of a masked knight galloping around the countryside beheading several passersby in Sleepy Hollow fashion.
Demons, perhaps, or nightmares, a kind of reality warp augmented by diminishing foodstuffs and suffocating isolation. It’s evocative, all vibes, though it works remarkably well. Largely, as noted, on account of Harden’s unbridled, suitably vicious performance. It’s the kind of work she does best, though too irregularly these days, and it’s remarkable that it’s the horror genre that finally gave her the kind of material she’s needed for years.
The Game of Thrones alums are strong, too, though often a touch too nondescript to make much of an impact. It’s great to see Turner and Harington, though The Dreadful prioritizes the eponymous dread in lieu of giving them much deep characterization to work with. Atmospherically, The Dreadful is strong enough to supersede shallow main players, much like its loose inspiration, Onibaba, though it never quite reaches the heights of Kaneto Shindō’s enduring classic.
The Dreadful is an early winner for 2026. While narratively slight and never quite as propulsive as Abraham’s Boys (an underrated gem, if you ask me), there’s plenty of throwback Gothic charm to be had. If Hammer were still around in earnest, we’d see a lot more like The Dreadful. We don’t live in that reality, however, so we take what we get. Even better when it’s this dread-inducing.
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The Dreadful
Summary
Natasha Kermani’s The Dreadful is insidious, slow-burn Gothic horror and one of the year’s earliest genre delights.
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