Betriek and her family live at the end of a peat bog — a near-swamp — in the north Netherlands, a quiet place broken up by an attack by a random stranger one dark night. Why? The answer to this will obsess her and take her to places darker than she may ever want to go.

After all, an ancient body has already been found in the bog and the non-stop digging of an archeological team is pushing Betriek’s sanity to the edge. But now the bog itself has begun to whisper, those sounds making the diggers lose their minds and attack people. 

Nico van den Brink’s short Sweet Tooth is currently being developed into a full-length feature by James Wan and Sam Raimi; this is his first full-length movie. This folk horror film starts with the murder of Betriek’s grandfather — his blood drips through the floorboards all over her — and somehow gets even darker as time passes. The bog is filled with dead bodies; her mother is dying from some unknown illness and her father waits, drunk, in the basement for the return of the man who killed his father. 

It takes its time to get where it needs to go, but once it gets there, the horror is palpable. The director and writer wants to open the Netherlands to more horror movies; here’s hoping he gets his way.

Moloch is now streaming on Shudder.