Sator is an uncomfortable watch, crafted over seven years by director Jordan Graham, it’s a low budget, slow burn affair. Large parts are hugely effective, with use of black and white 4:3 ratio mixed into the largely 16:9 colour film, and Graham’s real-life grandmother adding authenticity. However, it is a film that disturbs rather than engages, and one you would likely not return to.

Adam (Gabriel Nicholson) lives a lonely existence in a log cabin, surrounded by desolate forest. His brother Pete (Michael Daniel) occasionally visits, while trying to try keep their widowed grandmother company. She has a history of mental illness and has been channelling the words of Sator (a spirit in the forest that has protected her but can be malevolent) in various notebooks for years. As Adam starts seeing figures wearing fur and deer skulls, he starts to question whether Sator is real or just part of his Nani’s fragile psyche. Sator is at its most effective when spending time with Nani (June Peterson, sadly her first and final role) the fact she really suffered from Sator related delusions adds gravitas to her scenes, which are genuinely unsettling – whether she is talking to camera or intensely staring out from her bed. The film feels influenced by The Blair Witch Project with it’s blurring of fact and fiction, or a much shorter Ari Aster feature, building dread and introducing the idea of Sator disciples.

Even though many great ideas and filmmaking techniques are used, Sator is ultimately not entertaining or revelatory enough to leave a mark. One to discuss at a dry dinner party but not to dwell on.