UK, 1 hour 18 minutes, Directed by David Luke Rees

T​rying to get over a profoundly distressing attack that ended in fatality, Lizzy Roberts agrees to act as a carer-cum-housekeeper for Amy and Alex Cummings at their remote country home. But with Alex on a business trip and Amy still clearly traumatised by the accidental death of their only child, Lizzy finds her new job not quite as straightforward as she’d hoped. Yet Amy seems to be improving under Lizzy’s watchful eye, and normality seems to be returning to the Cummings household until Lizzy starts having nightmares and hallucinations and finds evil outside forces are twisting that normality.

By the Throat is a slow burn psychological horror, with a lovely addition of another sub-genre (that I won’t mention, it case it’s too spoilery!). The tension throughout is agonising and the depiction of anxiety and altered states through some fantastic sound design, made me really uncomfortable. As someone who has had anxiety most of my life, I’m really never sure why I continue to watch tension-fuelled movies like By the Throat. And even more so, why I enjoy them so much!

Director David Luke Rees says “By the Throat was born out of a desire to examine grief through the lens of horror—not in grand, sweeping gestures, but in the intimate, quiet spaces where it festers. This is not a film about ghosts in the traditional sense. Instead, it is about the way loss lingers, how it embeds itself in the walls, the air, the fabric of our existence.” You can absolutely feel this throughout the film – the characters are haunted by different circumstances and you can see this in everything they do.

Patricia Allison, who I loved as Ola in Sex Education, was a brilliant lead. I really empathised with Lizzy and was genuinely rooting for her throughout the film. Jenny Spark and Rupert Young played couple Amy and Alex really well too, leaning into the unpredictable nature of their characters.

I will be honest – I would have enjoyed a bit more of an explosive ending, for my own catharsis, after being hunched in a tense little ball for an hour. But I did really like the film overall and would absolutely give it a second watch. A gem of a British thriller.