Grimshaw 2025 Review: Slow-Burn Folklore Wrapped in Noir

Film Title: Grimshaw

Cast: Caitlin Allen, Les Best, Cheyenne Goode, Annette Duffy, Ben Rollins

Director: Thor Moreno

Writer: Thor Moreno

Distribution: BingeTV, Tubi

Production: Fearless Cinema, LLC / 1949 Productions Release Date: 2025 (Festival Circuit)

Watched on streaming platform: BingeTV

Review by: Mother of Movies

Indie Creature Horror Meets Deliberate Pacing

Grimshaw demands an exhausting amount of patience for its deliberate pacing and subdued delivery but rewards the tolerant with an original folklore creature feature. It’s a somber supernatural noir that stumbles straight out of the gate with shady camerawork, yet eventually settles into a steady, atmospheric mystery.

I was disappointed with the shaky-cam opening sequence, it belongs on the cutting room floor, but the subsequent cinematography corrects course to build something worth following.

Director Thor Moreno drops FBI Agent Roland (Caitlin Allen) into a remote town to investigate a brutal murder, injecting an overarching layer into the typical procedural beats through the agent’s medicated agoraphobia.

The narrative leans heavily into the A24 dream-logic slow-burn wave popularized by films like The Green Knight, stretching its plot points aggressively far apart. The isolation of the fog-shrouded town wraps around the screen like a damp wool blanket, suffocating the locals in their own deceit.

Sonically, the original score drags a heavy, somber string arrangement across the eardrums, perfectly matching the gloomy aesthetic of the wardrobing and production design.

However, the execution falters terribly when the script demands emotion. Scenes that should be drenched in angst evaporate. Dialogue is delivered with a muted, flat affect that is far too noticeable in many scenes. I was utterly baffled by an editorial choice to include a flashback of a conversation that had literally just taken place two minutes prior, that interrupts an already crawling tempo.

Performances are mostly acceptable for the indie bracket, though early scenes featuring Maura (Cheyenne Goode) feel off-balance. She appears far more focused on catching the right lighting angle than projecting the grief of a daughter whose mother recently vanished off a bridge. Beneath the primary monster hunt, a tangled familial subplot bubbles quietly regarding her father, covering up infidelity and possible murder.

A vagrant claiming he watched Maura’s mother go into the river already dead tethers the supernatural violence to mundane human rot.

The local mythology is highly detailed. Instead of recycling tired demonic possession tropes, the script invents the “Grimshaw”, an entity birthed from the cruelty of an old-timey hanging tree. When the climax finally erupts, the camera catches a desperate, close-up running shot charging straight at the lens. It’s a fiercely inventive use of a micro-budget that did a great job of creating what would normally be gruesome bloodbath sans the blood.

Is Grimshaw worth firing up your 7-day BingeTV free trial?

If you need rapid-fire scares and tight pacing, check our direct streaming widget below to find something else entirely. But if you have a tolerance for unhurried storytelling and appreciate costume design and practical creature elements that punch above their financial weight, this forgotten myth might just scratch that midnight itch.

Verdict & Rating

Grimshaw is rated

2.5 Tests of Cinematic Patience out of 5

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Similar Titles to Grimshaw

For another folklore movie with more Fairy tail in it – Check out Pinnochio Unstrung.

 • The Witch – Puritain isolation meets folklore dread in a visually stark landscape.

• A Dark Song – An incredibly slow, grief-stricken dive into occult rituals and dark truths.

• Harbinger – No witches, but plenty of another kind of curse

• The Hollow Child – A foggy, small-town indie thriller heavily reliant on deep-woods mythology.

• Sator – A micro-budget, intensely atmospheric cabin-in-the-woods creature feature.

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