The Dark and the Wicked2020
Overall7.0
Fear5.0
Atmos8.0
Gore1.0
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whodunnit
The Gift
2000 · R · 1h 52m
The only witness to the crime was not even there.
The visions started with a missing woman. They haven't stopped since.
The Gift is Sam Raimi's Southern Gothic supernatural thriller about Annie Wilson, a widowed psychic in a small Georgia town who uses her abilities to help troubled locals make ends meet. When a young woman from one of the town's prominent families goes missing, the sheriff turns to Annie — and her visions draw her into a murder investigation that puts her and her children at risk. Raimi wraps genuine supernatural menace around a story about complicity, danger, and a woman who knows too much in a place that doesn't want her to.
dramamysteryhorrorthriller
Tags
atmosphericwhodunnit
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Scores
Based on 1 rating
7.8
Overall
Fear5.0
Gore1.0
Atmosphere7.8
LanguageEnglish
RatingR
Running time1h 52m
SpoilersSynopsis — contains plot detailsSynopsis↓
Annie Wilson is a widow raising three sons in the small town of Brixton, Georgia, making a meager living giving psychic readings to townspeople. She's consulted regularly by a fragile young man named Buddy Cole, whose own disturbed inner life mirrors her sensitivity. She also deals with Donnie Barksdale — a volatile, violently abusive local man who has threatened her for encouraging his wife to leave him.
When Jessica King, the beautiful fiancée of local school principal Wayne Collins, disappears, the sheriff asks Annie for help. Annie's visions lead investigators to a pond on Barksdale's property, where Jessica's body is found. Barksdale is arrested and tried — he had prior threats against Jessica, motive, and opportunity. Annie's testimony helps convict him.
But Annie's visions keep coming, and they don't implicate Barksdale. They point to Wayne Collins himself. Jessica, it turns out, was carrying on an affair and had a private life at odds with her public image. When she threatened to derail Wayne's carefully constructed respectability, he killed her.
Annie's visions grow more violent and specific. Buddy Cole, increasingly unstable, spirals into a threat. In the climax, Annie confronts the truth about Wayne and survives the attempt on her life that follows. Wayne is exposed. Donnie Barksdale — genuinely dangerous and guilty of other cruelties — is innocent of this murder. The film ends with Annie still in Brixton, still seeing things she didn't choose to see, still carrying the gift she was born with.
