Went Up the Hill is one of those stiff, formally austere films that critics feel obliged to describe as “meditative” or “cerebral”. It’s a deeply pensive ghost story with a difference, following Jack (Dacre Montgomery), a man who learns about his mother, Elizabeth – who abandoned him as a child – via unconventional means. She speaks to him through her widowed wife, Jill (Vicky Krieps), after her death by suicide. And vice versa, she can also enter Jack and speak to Jill, creating a strange dynamic with three characters in two bodies.
In a more conventional horror production, these “from the grave” conversations might be staged with wild eyes, demonic voices, spinning heads and splattering fluids. But this is a steely, deadly serious work, directed by Samuel Van Grinsven with a hand so steady it could thread a needle in a hurricane. The film is pristinely controlled, though that pristineness often feels empty – like a skyscraper lobby or a vacant ballroom.
