The tedious folk horror tale "Enys Men" is a case of plenty of folk but no horror.
Writer-director Mark Jenkin (2019's "Bait") immaculately captures the look of a 1970s British import, so much so that "Enys Men" looks like it could have been found on an isle somewhere, where it went unseen for the last five decades. He gets the grainy, faded look of the film stock (it was shot on 16mm), the slow-paced sensibility of the storytelling, the slightly un-synced sound of the dialogue and even the occasional vinyl pops on the soundtrack. Style points are through the roof. But the mystery of the story he's telling remains buried under lock and key.
Mary Woodvine plays a character known only as the Volunteer, who sticks steadfast to her daily routine. It's springtime 1973, and she lives alone on an island off the coast of Cornwall, where everyday she puts on her red windbreaker, visits a cliffside cluster of flowers and takes the temperature beneath the soil. She then climbs back up a hill and drops a rock down a deep well, waiting for it to hit water below. She returns home and marks down her findings in a notebook.
