A spellbinding debut that rips apart your emotional security with insidious, slow-burning precision.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 14, 2024

Despite its concise 84-minute run time, events run out of steam at the midpoint. Things are bleak but how much bleaker can they get?

| Feb 21, 2022

The most effectively atmospheric film of the year, William McGregor's directorial debut is a stunner that engulfs the viewer in a dark world of paranoia, greed and sickness that produces a brand of horror that's all too relatable and timely.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Nov 21, 2020

Gwen is a taut little thriller that offers some truly frightening moments, both ethereally and morally. McGregor has a deft hand with an eye for moody landscapes and a handle on the beats for a solid horror entry.

| Jun 24, 2020

Gwen is a moody dark film with great performances all around, but the film as a whole feels a bit bland or like something is missing.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 4, 2020

This is slow burn horror done right. When the plot isn't occupying our attention, we are treated to foreboding atmospherics that reinforces the mood.

| Original Score: 7 | Feb 9, 2020

[William] McGregor's film is an atmospheric mood piece that is light on dialogue and cast members, yet manages to make the most of its location.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 6, 2020

Gwen is [William McGregor's] debut film; an assured start, deeply unsettling and bleak ... [trading] in a dark, slow horror that creeps on you in waves [and] grounded in reality.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 18, 2019

...GWEN is a must-see Shudder Original...

| Original Score: 8/10 | Oct 17, 2019

Gwen is all atmosphere, a chilly feeling permeating through every corner of its expertly-curated frame.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Oct 9, 2019

William McGregor's film is a terrific embodiment of moral terror. The film plays with its audience's expectations in how it displays and executes genre convention with wonderfully coy and captivating results.

| Oct 2, 2019

Well acted and the locales reflect the poverty of North Wales in the 1800's, but the movie is a downer from beginning to end. A little ray of hope would have helped.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Sep 9, 2019

A monotonous and underwhelming psychological thriller with stylish cinematography and a foreboding atmosphere, but it never rises above mediocrity.

| Original Score: 5.5542/10 | Aug 28, 2019

Set during the First World War, Gwen is a sort of folk horror chamber piece filmed amid the sweeping valleys and majestic hills of north Wales. Writer-director William McGregor... has crafted a remarkable debut feature.

| Aug 23, 2019

The film might only descend into bloodshed near its end, at which time it's brutal though under cover of night. But it leaves the viewer no space for confusion: everyday commerce is itself a form of violence.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 22, 2019

Gwen is a film that has been made with no small amount of skill and has interesting individual elements that unfortunately never come together into a fully satisfying whole.

| Aug 21, 2019

It is a startling debut, with economical direction and a tight script that belies the depths of its characters and themes.

| Aug 21, 2019

Gwen is a coldhearted story of classism and corruption via power, and the slowest of slow burns to be appreciated as such.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 18, 2019

While visually striking and atmospheric, the film is hobbled by its narrative murkiness.

| Original Score: C+ | Aug 16, 2019

For the most part, Gwen achieves what it sets out to do. It surrounds you in scenic hopelessness and lets you stew in it until you're done, or Gwen's done.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 16, 2019