When I watched trailers and announcements for this one, I knew this must be a good movie and I was not wrong. Christian Bale leads great actors line-up in this darkened gothic thriller. Bale plays world weary detective Augustus Landor, who is summoned by the army in West Point to investigate the series of gruesome murders. There he finds help of young cadet Edgar Allan Poe(superb Harry Melling – Dudley from Harry Potter serial) who helps him discover dark secrets and uncover the sad and grisly truth about witch hunters, rituals, talk with the dead and the ugly and sad twist at the end of the movie. Besides above mentioned, I must also highlight Gillian Anderson (agent Scully from X-Files) in eerie role of disturbed woman and also Robert Duvall as expert in occult professor Pepe. I don’t know, although this is over two hours long movie, it is not boring for one second and made in nightly darkened tone of gothic like secrets, atmosphere and mood are depressing and sad, from main character to the story itself. Movie is directed by Scott Cooper, known as director of Hostiles, Out Of The Furnace which also featured Christian Bale. Cooper is a co-writer with Louis Bayard and the script is dynamic and well crafted. Murders are grisly and gory, but done in a nice way, so if you are not into gore scenes, do not worry, you will see none of these explicitly in this movie. So, in the end, nice one, but not top of the pops.

7,5/10