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5.5/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5.5/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Lorna Doone remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Honestly, only if you are the type of person who finds comfort in the smell of old celluloid and doesn't mind when actors seem to be reciting their lines from a list taped to the back of their partner’s head. If you love sweeping landscapes and doomed romance, you might get something out of it. But if you hate feeling like you're watching a filmed play that refuses to leave the studio, skip this one.
The whole thing feels a bit like reading a dusty book in a room that hasn't been aired out in forty years. Margaret Lockwood is in it, which is the main reason to pay attention, but even she seems trapped by the sheer weight of all these capes and period-accurate scowls.
The English moors are supposed to be wild and dangerous, right? Here, they look like they were built out of cardboard and ambition. There’s a scene where the characters are wandering around these “rugged” landscapes, and you can practically hear the footsteps echoing on the wooden floorboards of the soundstage. It’s charming in a weird, low-budget way, but it takes you right out of the drama.
John Ridd spends so much time looking angry or mooning over Lorna that I started to wonder if he ever actually sleeps. He’s got that classic, intense gaze that was so popular back then, but it gets exhausting after an hour. The Doone family are supposedly these terrifying outlaws, yet they mostly just stand in doorways looking menacing while wearing very suspicious-looking wigs.
It’s not a complete wash. When the movie stops trying to be a serious historical epic, it actually has a pulse. There’s a certain weirdness here that reminds me of how messy things get in Déclassé, where the drama feels big but the actual production is just hanging on by a thread.
I found myself drifting off during the exposition dumps, but then I'd catch a glance of some really odd set decoration—a chair that looked completely out of place or a lantern that clearly wasn't throwing any light—and I was back in it. It’s an uneven watch, but if you’re a glutton for old-school cinema, you’ll probably find something to chuckle at. 🎞️
IMDb —
1915
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