hey hey thank fuck organised religious cults are only in fiction ha ha right *sweats*

The moments of physical action in this will have you drooling for what begs to be THE RAID meets THE WICKER MAN, but Evans is way more interested in a (very) slow to roll cult thriller. Extra points for not stringing you along with a "what's really going on here?" tease; this is very up-front even if it's 20 minutes too long. Anyway Evans can shoot the shit out of anything and this gets suitably gnarly when it counts.

first hour is kind of rough, lots of cliche characterization and ugly desaturated, handheld camera work (with no clear indication why its been shot this way until the last like 30m), but this hugely picks up around the time it goes full The Blood on Satan's Claw supernatural cult horror an hour in and then for some ungodly reason caps the whole thing off with 30m of "what if Witchfinder General was a torture porn movie?" unsure whether this is Actually Good or not but the bizarre whiplash of witnessing evans' paranoid, untethered photography and penchant for bonkers gruesomeness infect a 70s british folk horror locale in that finale was enough to get my lizard brain going and forget all the times actors opened their mouths in this. gotta be some value in that, right?

me: i just want the raid 3
gareth evans: fuck you

me: hehe look it’s matthew crawley! what’s matthew doing he—

dan stevens busting through the door and grabbing me by the throat: NO! NO! IT HAS BEEN SIX YEARS! I LOOK SO DIFFERENT! I DO HORROR THRILLERS NOW! IVE CHANGED

me: [spits in his face] HOW COULD YOU LEAVE LADY MARY ALL ON HER OWN 

how could they give.... dan stevens.... an audiobook narrator.... like..... three lines... in his own movie... i just want to listen to his sexy voice shut up

I’m a big fan of slow, brooding, boring, period piece folk horror—rotting soil, vine blood goddess, Dan Stevens, bursts of violence, and an intense third act that sees Mark Lewis Jones channeling gonzo Oliver Reed.

I didn’t really care for either Raid movies, loved by many and that’s awesome, but this is way more my speed... I would have gone even higher but it was a tad long, even for me, purveyor of overlong slogs, but at least it didn’t put me to sleep like Hold the Dark did. When it comes down to it cults and a town covered in vines is just appealing to me? I dunno, I dug it.

I’ll gladly add this to my Folk Horror list.

So this is kind of like a slow burn version of The Wicker Man in which you’ll almost forget it’s by the guy who did The Raid until it becomes an unholy insane goreapalooza and then you’ll remember.

It’s pretty good.

40

Unlike Midsommar, which at least counteracted its standard elements at many pivotal moments, this Gareth Evans film is both boring *and* unremarkable! A slow, slow-burn leading to a "shocking" finale that mostly just made me wish I was watching something with the verve to tell its story rather than walk me through the motions. Certainly well-crafted, but you could feel Evans the gonzo action maestro ready to burst out of his seat.

what is it with white people in rural areas forming religious horror cults all the damn time?

El folk horror tiene tan pocas películas que cualquiera es bienvenida.

Ésta es bastante floja en su primera parte, pero arranca cuando se pone asquerosita y ancestral. Aunque a casi todas del género les ocurre lo mismo.

Lo mejor, que Evans no olvida de dónde viene y se marca unas peleas estupendas.

Regulera

Okay so here's the thing about this movie... You have to know what you are getting into. If you have expectations set for something more along the lines of Mandy you are going to be disappointed like I was (I was also drunk). But after some further research and knowing what I am getting into and setting my expectations appropriately I thuroughly enjoyed this film and definitely recommend it.

Gareth Evans hace otro salto mortal después de hacer el mejor cine de artes marciales de los últimos años al folk horror con muy buenos resultados. Aun así hace un autoguiño a los dos Raids muy de agradecer.

The biggest praise I can give to Apostle is that watching it makes me feel the same way I did as when I read “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” for the first time. It throws a million different themes at the wall without really following through on any of them. It starts a bunch of different plot points none of which ever meaningfully play out. Every character seems primed for some real development yet is given none.

Yet it is able to make up for all of that with just sheer ability to deliver tension. Apostle is a simple movie compared to most modern horror fare. It is not deeply about Trauma or Race or Addiction or The Environment, and if it was trying to be, it is thoroughly unable to see those things through. But even without all of those things it is still able to offer up a great time just by hitting its marks so well.

Got halfway through before deciding this is a waste of time. Cast is pretty unconvincing. Cliche “have some nice looking shots of where everything’s gonna take place and then it’s gonna be boring”. Wants to be darker and more serious than it is.

i kinda hated it.

This was a fantastic viewing experience.

Weirdest Little Shop of Horrors remake ever

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Nice addition to the folk horror genre
Got thrown out of the story slightly at end as final shots of Dan Stevens looked a bit like Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer video - lol

Once again, Michael Sheen is the only actor on set who knows what film he's in.

I didn't hate this, as spooky cult movies go. Helped that I was also doing a jigsaw puzzle at the same time.

I’ll apostle this can of fresh oats up my asshole in a minute.