[FrightFest Glasgow 2025]: By The Throat

Jeany Sparks as Amy Cummings

Directed by David Luke Rees, By The Throat follows a care worker, Lizzy, as she takes charge of a grieving woman whilst the woman’s husband is away on business, but with her own trauma to contend with, can Lizzy overcome this to put her patient on the road to recovery?

Starring Patricia Allison as Lizzy, a survivor of a recent horrendous assault which has left her traumatised. She takes on a role as a carer and housekeeper to an affluent couple, the Cummings, who have recently lost their young child in a devastating accident, leaving the wife Amy (Jeany Spark) both physically and psychologically debilitated. When the husband Alex (Rupert Young) leaves the household in order to attend to a business trip, Lizzy sets to work attempting to improve Amy’s day-to-day state, yet when she starts to experience her own nightmares and hallucinations, she begins to realise there may be darker forces at play than just her own mind.

By The Throat makes it wholly obvious its intentions from the get-go of the film, wishing to portray post traumatic stress disorder and its effects on both the individual and a family unit, however its direction and the planned outcome seems to get a little lost in its tight 78 minute run time. With glimmers of a Ben Wheatley-esque folk horror spin, it unfortunately loses momentum on that path and appears to abandon it altogether with little to no explanation at the final sequence’s reveal. 

The film’s two main characters of carer Lizzy and wife Amy are performed expertly by both Patricia Allison and Jeany Spark. Allison plays Lizzy with a fractured strength, attempting to rebuild her life after a terrifying ordeal which has left more than just a few psychological scars. Exasperated by her overbearing mother and haunted by her nightmares, she is fragile, but wishes to take care of anyone else other than just herself. Sparks as Amy Cummings is, although obviously destroyed by the death of her child, is still unhinged, unpredictable and every so slightly sinister in her portrayal of a mother who would do anything to have her daughter back. 

Despite the strengths in the performances, By The Throat needs a stronger and sturdier backbone to carry the body of the film.

2 Screams out of 5