#92: Apostle

Apostle

Gareth Evans
Initial release: October 12, 2018 (worldwide)

images c/o FILMGRAB

For a long time there were four kinds of horror movies: good, so-bad-it’s-good, so-bad-it’s-awful, and so-bad-it’s-on-Netflix. For a while during the late Tens, Netflix was trying to rehabilitate this image. Out of that effort came the cult hit Bird Box, and a movie about a cult: Apostle. A slow-burn horror film that evokes the likes of The Wicker Man may seem surprising coming from filmmaker Gareth Evans, the director of the hit Indonesian action series The Raid, but rest assured, when things start to go pear-shaped, they go pear-shaped fast, with a sharp, biting edge to the violence of a cult collapsing on itself.

It’s 1905, and a wary, rough young man, Thomas, infiltrates a cult on a remote Welsh island in search of his sister, who has been kidnapped for ransom. When he gets there he finds that the cult isn’t quite as restrictive as you’d think, but they do take blood sacrifice seriously (minor, as opposed to murderous... maybe.) As he starts to dig around he soon discovers that not all is as it seems, even for a cult. Crops and livestock are failing and the village leaders are getting increasingly desperate — and suspicious. And the more he digs, the worse he finds.

The slow burn pace of the film builds tension to the point of bursting, and it wouldn’t work nearly as well if not for an A+ performance by the cast, particularly Michael Sheen as the charismatic prophet, and Dan Stevens, the British Ryan Gosling and star of The Guest (another explosive slow-burn flick) as Thomas. Evans is a solid director, who brings his cinematographic talent on full display in The Raid to this film, especially in scenes like a fight sequence in a house towards the end of the film, or a birds-eye view of a chase through a wheat field. An early scene of Thomas mentally preparing himself on the train to the town the cult does its proselytizing in sets the tone for the rest of the movie, all fast cuts and grimaces and taking what I’m guessing is morphine.

This is a solid horror flick from Netflix, proving that whatever you might feel about streaming vs. in-theater (especially in the pandemic era,) Netflix has the chops to bring quality film to the masses. Too bad they spent money on Dave Chappelle instead.

-june❤