Binding Eva

When Felix (Ryan Ralph Gerrard) leaps into the first unlocked vehicle he can find in the busy supermarket car park, injured and desperate to hide, he doesn’t expect to find a child there. As she gazes at him, unsure how to respond to this sudden turn of events, he presses his finger to his lips. Little Eva (Darcey Wood) smiles back warmly, delighted to be part of a game. it’s a moment of connection which will echo throughout Conscian Morgan’s intentionally uncomfortable thriller, even when things get very dark indeed.

What follows is ostensibly simple. Eva’s mother Katarina (Catherine Deevy) returns to the car, and Felix is able to force her to drive him out of there, along a wooded road. He’s anxious to get to Chepstow, where he has to deliver a package, but she’s frightened and angry and wants him out of the car as soon as possible. They argue and crash. He subsequently figures that his best option is to head through the woods on foot, leaving mother and daughter tied to a tree so they won’t give him away, but Katarina points out that they could die that way, from the cold. impulsive and dangerous though he may be, he is obviously not a cold-blooded killer. She suggests an alternative: they can walk as far as the river that leads to Chepstow together. She grew up in these woods. She knows a short cut.

Most of the remainder of the film consists of the three of them wandering around in the woods (in the Forest of Dean) after Katarina’s short cut fails to manifest. Anyone familiar with English geography will realise that it’s quite hard to get lost like this, because the forest only covers 42 square miles in total, and there are a number of roads running through it. Suffice to say that there is a narrative element accounting for this. You might well begin to wonder when the party passes a large, shaggy goat (Beautiful Bill) with a black cross painted on his side – and things will soon start getting weirder.

This film is a Frightfest 2026 pick, but in some ways that’s beside the point, because its real interest is in the relationships between the characters. Felix is volatile and increasingly frightened. Katarina is emotionally as well as physically tired, and less and less willing to let herself be pushed around. She and Eva have already been through a lot in the recent past, and as the three get to know each other. complicated bonds form, with Eva looking to both adults for help. We have seen in a prologue that Felix has a little boy in a broken relationship, and his paternal feelings come bubbling up to the surface when Eva is in danger.

It’s Gerrard who really carries the film, presenting us with a young man whose conflicted thinking is never well concealed despite his efforts to seem in control, but who has real emotional depths beneath it. At times Felix seems as much of a child as Eva is, and Katarina responds to that in a scene where she insists on attending to a wound he’s happy to ignore. He shows physical courage when faced with the natural hazards of the forest, but whether or not he can match that with moral courage is the question that will keep you on the edge of your seat towards the end.

There are some elements that don’t quite balance, and not every viewer will be satisfied by the overarching premise (when it emerges), but there’s a lot of good work here. It’s a small film which punches above its weight, generating thrills and chills without ever compromising its humanity.

Reviewed on: 30 Aug 2026