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Overview
We discuss a movie that was created by streaming service Netflix. We are getting more of these, which is good, because not all of them may be greenlit through the traditional venues.
This is a bit of a time piece about a secluded village. Do you get the feeling after watching several of these, that if you are going to a group that is secluded from everyone else that maybe it might be a better idea to go back to your couch, put your feet up, and have a beer? Our hero is going to rescue his sister because she DIDN’T go back to her couch.
There is some supernatural elements and some spooky Silent Hill-like elements. And of course, crazy leaders that get crazier when they think they are losing their power. It’s nothing like real life (ahem).
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Transcript
So Apostle. Yeah. Interesting movie. It’s a Netflix movie, which it is. We don’t, we haven’t actually had a lot of those.
Rhys: No. This season. I think there’s three or four actually. Yeah. And there’s some problems with Netflix films. From our standpoint, it’s really hard to get any kind of budget information Yeah.
On Netflix films cuz they don’t have a gate. So you have no idea. This was a UK US collaboration from 2018. It is still on Netflix and it’s a Netflix property, so it’s probably not coming off anytime soon. , so
Stephen: you, everybody, you got a chance to go find it and see it. Yes. Unlike a few of them that we had to dig up in some basement and pull the VHS out and record
Rhys: it.
? Yeah. Yeah. And now we’re being haunted for watching it. This is a full quarter piece set in 1905 on one of the many islands that sits be in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and
Stephen: Ireland. An interesting Irish weekend for us talking.
Rhys: Yeah. Yeah it is ironically. But this actually is far more Welsh than it is Irish, cuz it’s not supposed to be that far off the Welsh coast.
All of the three main bad guys in it are all Welsh actors. So now
Stephen: this one of the other big, the, this wasn’t the same islands that they used in the last couple Star Wars movies with Mark Hamel on it. Was it because Colin got to see those when he went to Ireland?
Rhys: No. These are actually off the coast of Eist with I think.
Okay. Which is Wales. And I don’t even know that the island they filmed the outside shots on were ac was actually shots on an island. It might have actually just been the northwest coast of Wales. Okay. And then a lot of the rest of it was shot on a sound stage and Cardiff And One of the big problems with this film is that it’s two hours and 10 minutes long.
Yes, it is a long
Stephen: film. Yeah. That was one of my notes is this is really dragging in a few spots. It could have been condensed quite a bit because a lot of our. Horror movies that we’ve been watching are right around the hour and a half mark, and that seems a very prime, timeframe to get just the right scenes and build it up in the story and hit that horror.
When it gets longer it, you’re not as afraid. It loses some of that suspense and horror aspect I think. Sometimes. Sometimes, yeah. Not every time.
Rhys: I th there’s this thing that I’ve noticed, and you guys can, you can write this down, call it the Reese formula if you want, but if any horror movie you’re watching when you get to the 25 minute left mark, that’s when everything picks up.
And if you’re sitting there and you’re like, I don’t know, it’s just gonna get even crazier. Check the time code and see where you’re at. Cuz if you’re right around 25 minutes left, it’s definitely gonna pick up. When you’ve
Stephen: watched 1200 horror movies, you probably can see a pattern for the good ones.
We’ll pick that as gospel,
Rhys: some of the movies that we have watched. And if you’ll think about ’em Like mid-summer and Audition. Both of those are very long films. However, they pull it off because the tone of the film is very different and you don’t really necessarily get to the horror aspects till the end.
Stephen: Midsummer definitely hinted and built up and stuff as it went. , so that’s a big thing too. This one I didn’t feel that as much No. As like Midsummer.
Rhys: And I wouldn’t compare the two. Just , I think Midsummer did a better job at that kind of length than Apostle does.
Stephen: Yeah. I, I agree. Yeah.
Yeah. In general, I just thought this one could have been a little shorter and probably would’ve made it better.
Rhys: Yeah, I’d agree. It debuted at Fantastic Fest in September, and it was streaming on Netflix by October of 2018. So it wasn’t even out there for a run. There was no theatrical run for this.
It was nominated for nine awards and it won one BAFTA for the best makeup and hair,
Stephen: Wow. Interesting. .
Rhys: Yeah, it was written and directed by Welsh writer director Gareth Evans. He has Masters of Arts in script writing from the University of Glen Morgan. That would also be o across the pond. He has 12 director credits.
10 of those include a writing credit as well. And the titles include the Raid Redemption and the Raid two. He did one of the segments of V H S two, which I don’t know if you’ve seen those. I know, yeah. He did five episodes of The Gangs of London. And he is got two films in various stages of production.
One’s called Havoc and one’s called Undying Love.
Stephen: And he, I was gonna say, I could see this movie definitely being a, I’m going to do everything to show what I can do to try and get other projects that I want and things I’d see that.
Rhys: Yeah. And I think Netflix is a good place to do that. Yeah. You It’s not, doesn’t necessarily make it good, but they’ll take, they’ll green light stuff pretty easily,
Stephen: which we were talking about that’s one of the nice things in today’s world, a lot of these movies that you wouldn’t get in the theater that they wouldn’t even do that.
Some of these streaming services want the content and they’re willing to try something that may not get, 20 million ticket holders, but it might get enough streams to make it worthwhile on their service. And more content means more people, blah, blah, blah. So you’ll see a few of these. I think October Sky or whatever that movie, other horror movie that Netflix did was another one that I watched.
I went, eh, it was okay. Yeah. And, but I would’ve never seen it in the theater.
Rhys: And I bet if you look at the director, it’s early in their
Stephen: career. Yes. Definitely kudos to the streaming for giving us these types of movies.
Rhys: Yeah. And it. I think it’s one of those kind of things where Gareth Evans in the long run might do some really amazing work, and this is definitely one that you’ll be able to look back on and say, oh, he like pulled elements from there, he he’s going to be the director for a movie called Blister, and he is the guy who is doing the Deathstroke movie.
Stephen: Oh, really? Deathstroke. What’s b blister?
Rhys: I don’t know, because one of my,
Stephen: one of my favorite authors has a book named Blister. I wonder if he got that optioned. That’d be cool. Yeah.
Rhys: Evans sights the Devil’s as the main influence to this movie.
It’s a 1971 British Horror movie. If you haven’t seen it, maybe we’ll put it on a list. It is it was it was banned in England for a while because of its subject matter and a lot of the nudie bits. Ah
Stephen: We should do a whole season of band, movies, or. Yeah,
Rhys: We’ve already done some .
Stephen: Oh, okay.
We’ve done a few . We can pull those into a playlist of bear. There you go.
Rhys: Yeah. He also cited the Wicker Man 1973. And if you saw the original Wicker Man, you can definitely see the parallels here. Yeah. And the Witch Finder General from 1968 rounds out the his main influences and the Witch Finder General.
It was also called the Conqueror worm, which is really ridiculous cuz it has nothing to do with Lovecraft or a Worm or anything. It was just Lovecraft with selling really well back then. And so they put the title on the movie hoping to get more people to come see it. I saw
Stephen: a horror movie you may have watched called Radioactive Vampire and Wow.
No, absolutely nothing to do with vampires or radio activity. It was this girl that was in a car wreck and her face was mangled and they were treating her like a monster. And this guy was gonna do surgery. Nothing to do with radio activity or vampires, .
Rhys: Wow. Gareth Evans sees the, as a piece that illustrates how man can use religion to influence others to join their political views.
Very Marxist actually. And, it’s tone and in fact, apostle, far more than the others is much more along the communist Marxist kind of philosophy. It’s not necessarily holding it up to a good light,
Stephen: the behind the scenes things of the community. Yeah, I have a few comments about that too.
Rhys: And their torture devices, which are used in this film he says the influence for that were the various things that Isis were doing to people when they were just rolling across Syria and Iraq and taking stuff over. And I guess there’s something that came from that influence for horror movies
Stephen: philosophically.
Is it a positive in ?
Rhys: Yeah. No, I wouldn’t go that for Dan Stevens plays Thomas. He’s the main character. He’s a British actor. He is been in 55 projects starting in a Frankenstein television, mi miniseries in 2004. Wow. Cool. And he did a Dracula TV movie in 2006, so he’s into the class, a horror stuff.
He was on an episode of Marble in 2007. He was Inns and Sensibility in 2008, the Turn of the Screw in 2009. Wow. Downton Abbey in 2010 does a lot of
Stephen: period pieces. Yeah, I was gonna say he definitely likes that classics going on. Yeah.
Rhys: Night at the Museum, secret Tomb, which I didn’t even know was a thing.
Beauty in the Beast. He was in Legion. He was in the Prince, and he does a voiceover in an episode of Love, death, and Robots. Oh, okay. The Michael Sheen plays Malcolm, who is one of the leaders of the cults that we’ll be looking at today. He’s a Welsh actor. He had a big stage career in 96 film projects.
He got his start on the small screen with mystery Gallo Glass in 1993. I don’t know if you, do you ever watch Mystery? No. It was a pretty good like mini-series hosting kind of thing for British mini-series that would pop up. Ath Fellow Underworld Evolution. The League of Gentleman’s Apocalypse the Queen Underworld Rise of the Lichens.
He did voiceover for Alison Wonderland. He was in a Child’s Christmas in Wales. Have you ever seen. No, those are really wholesome. Nice Christmasy holiday kind of things, if, which is
Stephen: a horror in itself sometimes. ,
Rhys: He was on 30 Rock Tron Legacy. He was in an episode of Dr. Who he was in the Twilight Saga Breaking Don Parts one and two.
He did voiceover for Alice through The Looking Glass, the Simpsons, the Good Fight, Doolittle the Sandman Podcast and Good Omens, which speaking of Dr. Who a few things ago, we got David 10 and Good Omens he was as well. So Mike Ko Sheen playing Malcolm Mark Lewis Jones plays Quinn. He’s the angrier of the three brothers.
He’s another Welsh actor. He started his career as a stage actor. He has 126 film credits starting with morons from Outer Space from 1985.
Stephen: Okay, I gotta find that one. .
Rhys: Yeah. Lots and lots of tele British television shows, including a two year run in the play on one and one year run on the life, this life.
He was also a master and commander of the far side of the world. Troy Torchwood. Did you watch the
Stephen: Torchwood series? It’s funny you say that. I just started this week. I never watched it before, but I was talking to somebody. How far behind I am on my Dr. Who. I picked up some Torchwood, the actor
Rhys: who plays Captain Jack.
I always found him to be just, he’s too good looking f for his own, you know what I mean? Yeah. So he always seems just a little. Fake just somehow to me.
Stephen: He was in Arrow also and Right. He felt very similar. Not the same character. He was a good actor. But I understand what you’re saying cuz it felt similar in both of those.
Yeah. And that
Rhys: was my biggest problem with Torchwood was he just felt a little off. And I’m not, I can’t even really say
Stephen: why, but I think that’s part of his character too.
Rhys: Yeah. He was on Law and Order uk. I didn’t even know that was a thing. Wow.
He was in Merlin favorite of my youngest sons. Okay. Colin. A child’s Christmas in Wales as well. They pull in all the Walsh shacks for that one. Robinhood Game of Thrones. The lighthouse, the Last Jedi he was in The Last Jedi. Oh, okay. The Crown Gangs of London, the Phantom of the Opera Outlander.
He did voiceover work for Dragon Age two War Hammer, 40,000 Nino Kuni, wrath of the White Witch, star Wars, the Old Republic, the Witcher two, the Witcher three, and Cave the Lords of Shadow two.
Stephen: So he had a pretty, pretty big good
Rhys: career. Yeah, a very varied career as well. Yeah. The last actor we’re actually gonna talk about the Third Brother.
I can’t remember the actor’s name off the top of my head, but again, fairly accomplished Welsh actor. Nothing that you or I would recognize. I didn’t type it all out. Lucy.
Stephen: Be it ,
Rhys: if you, there you go. Lucy Boynton plays Andrea Howell. She’s an American born British living actress. She’s been in 32 productions, starting with Ms.
Potter in 2006 since, and Sensibility Law and Order UK again, two and one movie. The Black Coat’s Daughter, which if you’ve not seen Wish I’ve heard that. We should put that on a list. It’s a good one. Okay. She was also in, I am the pretty thing that lives in the house. Another it was a Netflix. It is definitely a literary hoarder piece.
It’s. Very, it was one of the reasons I actually got Netflix when we were looking to get Netflix. I was like, I wanna see that movie. And also Don’t Knock Twice, which is nowhere near as literary as the first two horror movies that I mentioned that she’s in. But, every once in a while we all gotta do something to pay the bill.
Really?
Stephen: And those are fun. Come on. Oh yeah. I would love to be in a tongue in cheek cheesy horror movie. That’d be awesome. Sure. Spill my guts everywhere.
Rhys: Our movie starts with a low tring vocal as credits appear on a leather background and what looks like Gold leaf, which I thought was an interesting effect to use.
I’m not really. Yeah. But it did actually look like it was embossed into the cover of the leather, the whole thing’s, probably cgi. But as the voice reaches this crescendo, we see a train rolling through the English countryside, and Thomas is on the train reading a letter sent to his father from his sister who is being held hostage.
It then cuts to Thomas’s father’s house. And there’s a lawyer talking to Thomas, and he says that the world believes that Thomas is dead so he can go to this place and no one’s gonna know. His fa, his actual father is in the other room, and he is broken according to the lawyer. I’m assume it’s like a stroke or something.
He’s sitting by the fire. And there’s a quote about the fireplace that they linger on. It says The power of his resurrection lies in the touch of his suffering, which is a, I don’t wanna say misquote, but an interesting take on Philippians three 10. And in, in Philippians three 10, the author of the letter is saying he wants to know Jesus more fully by sharing in Jesus’ suffering.
Okay. So it’s a little different from most scriptural readings of that verse, but not a whole lot. It’s really subtle. Apparently Thomas and his father didn’t get along, but his sister is close to him. So he’s gonna do this he’s gonna disguise himself as a member of this family of blasphemers who are black, mailing his father and not pay the ransom until he sees her alive.
Stephen: Now, from a stor strictly story standpoint, yes. Anyone learning they always say, get to the hook, get to the conflict, blah, blah, blah, this movie within the first two minutes, bam, you know what the problem is, what’s happening? And we’re moving on into the next part. A lot of, in a movie that’s over two hours long, you would think this would be 10 or 15 minutes worth of movie time.
It’s two minutes and done moving
Rhys: on. Yeah. But the only thing more succinct than this would be if it was like Star Wars scrolling across the screen that you were reading.
Stephen: Yes. . Yeah. That’s it. Here’s everything you need to know. Let’s go. Yeah. And I must say now that we’re, you move into this whole cult and everything.
this movie could have been set in Pioneer America. Yeah. It probably could have been set in, some other country. It’s not, there’s not anything I’ve noticed about it that’s extremely Irish, extremely Welsh or British or English or anything. It’s it’s, that is generic, per se, not a bad thing, just saying.
This story could have been done in many different settings.
Rhys: The, yeah. The only thing that you could point to is being relatively European, and I don’t know that you necessarily could, is the concept of a female. Nature spirit entity is far more common a lot of times in European type settings than it is other places.
But you’re absolutely right, this could have taken place anywhere. Yeah.
Stephen: And that doesn’t make it bad. I’m just saying that, it’s a choice for the story.
Rhys: Yeah. The scene cuts back to him on the train and what looks like either this crazy pre passionate kind of prayer or just super high levels of stress.
And we find out as the movie goes on, it was probably far more like high levels of stress cuz I don’t feel like he’s one who’s gonna be praying very often. . The mystery is solved when he pulls out this vial of lanu and puts a few drops on his tongue.
Stephen: And they don’t, they show this several times, but they really don’t delve into it too much later in the movie because I’m looking at this and, they, they don’t.
Make it a point as to what this is. So if you know the time period, you could tell, but if you don’t, but you could see the whole thing that his eyes are all pink and bloodshed and, he’s, he is nervous, shaky and stuff. Yeah. Throughout most of the movie.
Rhys: I think really to point to a movie I love Tombstone the concept of Laham, entered the general vernacular, like with that movie with, cuz everyone was on it, , throughout the thing, right?
It wasn’t, I, it wasn’t a word that I had heard of a whole lot of times when, before that film came
Stephen: out. But, and the other thing that they do in the movie to show his state of mind, state of being is his fingernails around the edges. They’re encrusted. It almost looks like blood dried blood en crusting his fingers.
They show that quite often throughout the movie. I just, it just stuck out to me.
Rhys: Yeah. He shaved off his beard. He pockets his straight razor throws on a hat and he is ready to go. One of the things that I really like about this, that I enjoyed about this movie is the character without knowing e before even knowing his background seems like such a hard man that I don’t know that there were a lot of times where I feared for his life because I felt like at any point in time if you wanted to take these people out, he could take these people out.
Yeah,
Stephen: I have a story, comment about that later. .
Rhys: Yeah. Then there’s a point to reinforce that later. So he is now at the waterfront. There’s a small boat waiting for him, and the other cult converts. The boat is loading at night. And again, this is, the early 20th century, it’s not really cool to, if you don’t necessarily have to be religious, but you don’t necessarily want to be flying in the face of the Church of England if you happen to live in England.
So they’re doing this all on the sly, on the down low. They’re informed what they can’t bring, which is basically any kind of adulterous thing with them. Mostly books is the big thing. Books, pictures and the guy who’s telling them this emphasizes it by catching a book on fire.
Stephen: And I found it interesting, they gave this list.
You, you were allowed to have heirlooms, but not books and pictures and reminders of the mainland basically. But later you see them smoking and drinking, which is usually one of the things that, cults, religions and stuff cut out. So I found it interesting that that wasn’t, censored.
It’s,
Rhys: It is, I think. So you have these three guys who are criminals. They leave the mainland when they end up being arrested and they’re looking to go to jail, they escape, they leave the mainland, they’re ship wrecks. They find themselves on this island, they find this mysterious entity, they start a religion
So yeah, if you’re gonna start a religion and you are like a criminal anyways, who is into smoking and drinking, you might as well write it in there cuz you’re gonna want to anyhow.
Stephen: And arguably it shows what they feel they have to get rid of so they can keep control of the people, but the things they lax on actually help them keep control.
If people can’t smoke and drink, they start getting uptight. So it also, who’s going to attract, you would think heirlooms can be sold.
Rhys: Yeah. Everyone is supposed to have this ticket for this ride. And they’re ins they’re inspecting it as they get on. Thomas is watching carefully and he notes that his ticket is an invitation to come to Risdon, which is the name of the island, but you have to follow their rules of enclosed contact of that are enclosed in the contract, which he probably has never seen cuz it probably came with the ticket.
He then notes that the tickets, the people in front of him and behind him are missing this red dot, which happens to be on his, so a gentleman, fr gentleman in front of him is stopped to pull up books from his case to start burning them and he offers to help and when he does this little slide of hand thing and swaps his ticket for that guys and then gets back in line.
Stephen: Yeah. And this is one of the few points, and this is another story thing. This is where he is actively doing something to save himself and move forward. There’s several points coming later when. Something miraculous happens to save him. It’s a chance thing. So this is one of the few times he’s actually aggressively doing something to keep himself alive.
Rhys: Yeah. DEOs x Mauna is the thing throughout this film. ? Yes. To confirm his suspicions, he notes that when that guy gets on board, the guy who he swapped a ticket with, they mark that guy’s bags with a chalk X. The crossing isn’t nice. Some woman starts to call him out for not recognizing him.
From the prayer meetings, he blows her off and this lamb comes washing off the deck, hits the, hits, the galley where they’re at. And this guy picks it up and throws it overboard, claiming that only she decides who lives and dies. It’s not up to them to intervene, which is
Stephen: good giving you a story. But I wanna point out later, there’s a sheep giving birth that they’re assisting to help.
Wait, which one is it? You can’t do both .
Rhys: I honestly think when the guys set up the religion, that was like something they’re doing right. You don’t interfere because she is going to determine what lives and what dies. Now they’re in a bind because everything is cursed on that island. Yeah.
So they would’ve much rather had that lamb than hold to any kind of theological point that
Stephen: they had set up. Or also, and I thought of this too, That these are the rules for everybody, but behind the scenes we do things a little different. So yeah, we got that too. And also, can you imagine anyone from like our, modern era America going on a boat, that’s basically topsy derby and getting wet and storm man, there’d be so much complaining and , oh yeah, want my money back and stuff?
No money here, but, and that was a short
Rhys: trip. They weren’t going far.
Stephen: Just
Rhys: across the channel. the next morning finds travelers on rowboats and they’re being pulled up to this small island bay. As they approach the dock. There’s this group of thuggish looking men who come down to meet them, and they’re all in matching frocks.
Luggage is unloaded and we see the one with the X on the side, and Thomas gets his bag from the porter and heads down the dock, glancing over his shoulder as the thugs in their leader quietly surround the guy who owns the X bag. The scenery is amazing. Yeah, it’s absolutely stunning in this as they all carry their bags, they start up this hill seeing these crosses in the distance.
And you’re looking at it and it’s three crosses your ty, typical kind of Christian emblem. It turns out they aren’t crosses, but what is left of a ship that a wave took up and set down basically on top of this cliff. So
Stephen: that’s a huge cliff. That was some wave .
Rhys: Yeah, that was quite the storm. They get to the settlement and Thomas begins to take in the sights.
There’s a statue of this cloaked woman and as he passes it, Jeremy, who is the porter from earlier, offers his services if Thomas should need anything. And Thomas notes. There’s this look between Jeremy and this girl on the side named FI’s. Father Quid comes out and looks like a sour bastard, and he sends her back in to prepare the table for dinner.
Turns out, looks can confirm what you’re thinking about someone . Yeah, the new arrivals line up. They’re inspected by a doctor before they go and register with this other man. There’s this woman in front of him who’s registering, and Thomas is being, as Thomas is being inspected, he glances over and catches Jeremy sneaking around behind buildings, probably to go meet up with Fien Thomas registers as Thomas Richardson.
He gets to his room and he has this receptacle. Everyone gets a receptacle. It’s just a quart jar really, and a small loaf of bread. And immediately begins casing his room and looking out to the yard, and he finds a book of the prophet Malcolm or Irid, and he begins to leaf through it. I did wanna point out that the woman who was in front of him had been arrested for loitering.
Yeah. And the guy points out to her, She is free from all that kind of oppression here, that you’re here, you are part of the community will take care of you. Which kind of again, reinforces the whole commune communistic kind of thing. Like as long as you’re here, we’ve got you, but you’re going to do exactly what we say.
Stephen: And I was wondering what type of criminal record would get you banned and barred, and then what would happen? , because yeah, obviously they show this to show that they’re loving and embracing and letting people in, but I really wonder, I murdered 10 people.
Okay, welcome to the community. .
Rhys: Yeah. We don’t necessarily know what the three guys who started this community were guilty of either when they
Stephen: true. And they don’t let that be known to their sheet.
Rhys: Outside Quinn is looking suspiciously at the boarding house.
Quinn does not like strangers. Quinn doesn’t like a whole lot except maybe Quinn. Now you hear this vocal choir. It cuts to hearing this vocal choir saying some kind of him. It’s called the Almost Christian. It was by Isaac Watts. It was popularly found in hymnals throughout the 19th century. It’s died off.
You’re not gonna find this in modern hymnals anymore, but it was like a big hit back in the 19th century . Obviously the Ceremony Church has started. Thomas is late leaving the boarding house. It doesn’t really seem to bother him. He’s just like walking out. And he’s not the only one.
There’s this woman, Andrea,
Who comes walking up and she says that Malcolm he hates it when she’s the last one there. Malcolm is the guy who wrote the book, the Prophecy book. There seems to be something momentarily between the two of them, like this kind of romantic spark. He’s about to go and he sees the thugs arriving back in town and they’re carrying somebody and it would be that poor guy who he swapped tickets with.
He doesn’t seem to bother him though, ,
Stephen: right? Oh, good for me. And he also, he rubbed some dirt or something off of her cheek and she makes some comment, almost alluding to that it would’ve gotten her in trouble if she had showed up like that. They don’t delve into that a whole lot more later. But it’s, I think just another, to give you a sense of the control of the whole cult.
Yeah, that’s when I took it as, cuz it never really showed back up. .
Rhys: And as Steve and I who were talking about this beforehand, I have to admit had mentioned a lot of this movie seems like a thriller. You don’t really get horror elements introduced or supernatural elements introduced until now.
Yeah. And it’s just a, and it’s spark. It’s a subtle passing thing. Yeah. Once he gets to the prayer house, Malcolm is in there telling his origin story. He and his two brothers were sentenced to death, but they escaped and came upon this island where they heard her singing. Whenever I refer to her in here, it’s always capital H because that’s how she’s listed in the credits as
Stephen: her.
Makes
Rhys: sense. They just call her she and claim she is the goddess of the island. He claims to be her Herald. As he’s preaching Thomas and Andrea share another kind of knowing look between the two of them. Then Thomas notices an almost ghostly figure walking outside the building that no one else seems to see.
Except Malcolm. Malcolm notices it too. Andy notices that Thomas seems to see her as well. He has this whole libertarian kind of speech. It’s met with applause and it’s only mildly interrupted the applause when one of the thugs comes in whispering to his brother Frank, who gets up and leaves after the service.
Thomas goes out and looks down the side of the building for this mysterious woman. And here’s, it’s a real subtle thing, but if you look, she would’ve had to be 10 foot tall or flying to get past those windows. Yeah. So obviously there’s something up with her, but there’s no one there. So maybe it was big.
There’s a clump of moss growing on the side of the building, which is slowly decaying because after she has passed her essence goes with
Stephen: her, apparently. Yeah. And that’s a good supernatural clue and hint for what’s coming. Yeah. But then they don’t really come back with that for a while,
Rhys: there’s a long period. Yeah. The next scene we find out what happens if you have an X on your bag. This guy is beaten up, he’s on the floor in this empty building. And four, the three brothers, Malcolm knows he’s not the right guy and he’s been conned somewhere along the line and he’s feels badly that they beat this innocent guy up for no reason at all.
But he just decided he is gonna end his suffering. So he has Quinn slice his throat. Okay. And that means that there’s a traitor somewhere on the island. .
Stephen: Yeah. Now knowing this is jumping ahead just a bit, but knowing wh what they do again, why weren’t they collecting the blood from this guy ?
Rhys: Ooh.
That’s a really good
Stephen: point. They basically wasted it. Again, there were just a few little scenes that. Seemed like it was because that, that, oh, that’s dramatic, but it didn’t make sense with the whole mythology going on in the story.
Rhys: They do have a whole meat processing thing.
Maybe that’s what they did with the rest of it.
Stephen: Could be, but cut his jugular. Not much blood’s gonna be left after that.
Rhys: It’s a lot cleaner ways to kill somebody. That evening in the pub, there’s a band playing. Thomas is having a drink. The three brothers show up and look the crowd over. While that’s going on, Jeremy and Fiona are cuddling and the wreck of the boat closer to shore, dreaming of escaping the island.
And it turns to quite a bit more than that .
Stephen: And she’s the aggressor. Yes.
Rhys: And it wins an award for the sex scene with the most clothes on because they managed to have sex and show no skin short of maybe their faces. . Everyone back at the settlement is called the quarters. As the evening comes to a close and Thomas sneaks off, his first stop is to look through a window to watch some family filling up their receptacle with blood.
That’s what the little court
Stephen: jars are for. That was the lady that was ahead of him in line with, we had the little girl there. Yep.
Rhys: His next stop is looking into Andrea’s window. Creeper. But he’s actually doing it because Malcolm lives there too, and he’s pulling up this rug in his dining room, which reveals a trap door leading below the house.
Thomas tries to follow as he does. He like physically runs into Fien and he tells her to hush and lets her pass. He then sees Jeremy in the distance and heads back to his quarter. He comes back to the hallway and he notices that everyone’s court jar are sitting in the hallway outside their door. As he walks down the hall, there’s a white-haired woman that he saw walking outside the meeting hall before she’s standing at the end of the hall.
And she of course disappears when he turns. She’s not really there for him to see. She’s there for the audience to see. Then he does this brilliant thing where he takes someone else’s jar and dumps half of it into his own jar so that he doesn’t have to worry about, having to bleed into a jar.
Stephen: And we figure out what this is for, but this is another thing. I would’ve thought it would’ve appeared somehow later. It’s just the first hint of what they do. And then the jars in the blood never really brought up again. I don’t know. To me, it just seemed like they, they should have.
Something in the background again with the blood or brought it up or whatever.
Rhys: If he had any doubt about what the blood’s for, when he goes and goes to unlock his door, he cuts his finger cuz his key is ridiculously designed .
Stephen: I thought about that. Like it looks like it’s designed to do exactly that to puncture and bring, let blood loose.
So I thought that was interesting.
Rhys: Yeah. A few drops spill out from his finger and hit the floor. He goes inside and then the blood drops slide across the floor to this crack where there’s a mouth underneath the floor, like eagerly laing it up as it slides through the cracks of the floor.
Yes. We know what it’s for .
Stephen: Yeah. It’s feeding the floor. Monster . Yes.
Rhys: But he goes inside and he starts to make a map of the compound, which is actually a pretty smart thing to do. Now we see where that trap door that Malcolm went into, empties out into it’s this large barn like structure.
He’s beat by, he’s greeted by this large silent figure. And that’s all the more you get is there’s this big barn and this big figure. And
Stephen: tell me he did not have hints of Pyramid Head from Silent Hill going on there.
Rhys: He just needed to be dragging a giant sword behind him. Yeah, that was definitely Thomas Awakens the next morning and we see that his back is covered in scars.
As he sits up in his bed, he’s taking his daily dose of Lanu. When Jeremy knocks on the door, he’s come to get Thomas cuz it’s time for work. Which for Thomas seems to be tying bundles of boards together. Don’t know why, but
Stephen: you know why. They’re ripping apart the ship. It’s very, that’s another very cult.
So now you’re here, you’re cut off from everybody. You can’t escape. The ships are gone. Yeah.
Rhys: Jeremy approaches him as to why he was outside. And he knows that Thomas has him dead to rights. And Thomas takes this opportunity to be like, Hey, you know what? It’s okay. We’re both good guys. It’s gonna be fine.
I’m go
Stephen: blackmail you now. ?
Rhys: Yes, . And if you didn’t think that he was gonna blackmail him the next scene you find out for sure cuz Thomas needs help cutting up the ship by the shore. So he goes to help him and the boat belonged to an enemy spy, but she protected them by stopping the man from leaving.
They’re hauling the wood back. Thomas thinks he’s got a friend, so he shows the Jeremy this picture of his sister and Jeremy tries to run. Just like super nervous, he’s gonna run. And Thomas just tackles him, and you get the real true glance of what Thomas really is. He demands, answers. Turns out everything’s not great on the island.
Crops are failing, animals aren’t breeding. So they needed to have his sister’s money to smuggle food in from the mainland. They tied her up in a box for safekeeping, but the money never came. But then in a turn of events, Jeremy’s don’t pay it. Don’t pay the money. This place is awful.
Stephen: And again, that, that shows, look at this wondrous society we’re building how great it is, but down underneath it’s really rotten and yep, very despicable.
Rhys: Thomas tells him that if he wants his little affair with Fiona to be a secret, he’ll do whatever Thomas asks. And right around then if you haven’t had it yet, this is where you get that feeling that Thomas is a badass and he’s seen some stuff.
Stephen: Yeah. And he also has the, I don’t care about my own life attitude going
Rhys: on.
Yeah. Yeah. That helps a lot when you’re in a situation like that. Malcolm and Quinn are delivering a lamb, and it turns out it’s all deformed and it just confirms what Jeremy had said. Malcolm says she will provide them with another clean harvest. An announcement is made that all new arrivals should make their way to the church.
There’s a scene between Andrea and Fi. They’re having this heart to heart while they’re hanging up. Laundry and FI’s asking Andrea if she can tell if she’s pregnant. Andrea seems to be the thought that, if they’re in love, it’s okay. It’s not a sin. Tell that to
Stephen: Quinn. She doesn’t seem to be in the whole mindset of this community.
A hundred percent right? She’s got our feet a little bit still on the mainland that you might say. Yeah.
Rhys: As they’re having this conversation, Thomas blunders into them and he gets sent to the church with the rest of the new arrivals. They’re all in. The church lined up and Malcolm is lecturing them that they’re not allowed out after the night bell.
And he knows somebody was out and about. So he has the kneel and he quotes a line of his own scripture and then he stops. And the first guy’s supposed to. And then that guy’s done. The next guy picks up and just goes down the line and it’s not looking good for our hero unless he happened to have memorized that book overnight.
What? What will happen? Tune
Stephen: in next week, .
Rhys: Thomas Nos. He’s screwed. He’s reaching for his razor, which he keeps in his pocket and the guy before him pulls out a dagger and attacks Malcolm for King in country. Yes. This is one of those fortunate incidents that happens.
Stephen: Yeah. And. That, once or once in a story is good, but more than one of these happens, it’s like multiple times these types of fortuitous events happens and it’s a bit like, oh my God.
Of course something happens to save him. Yeah. So I know how it works in the story, but it sometimes gets weak after a
Rhys: while. I think there’s this whole thing though it, it’s referred to as DiUS ex Machina, right? The God machine. But I think in this instance, there’s a lot of things that are happening where the captive God knows that he’s there and knows that he is the article of its salvation.
And so it is causing things to happen.
Stephen: So you are right there. And I’m not a movie maker, I’m not a filmmaker. I’m not even the great storyteller. But in that case, if they would’ve flashed on, she. and then back, it would’ve connected that she’s in control. That would’ve been totally different than this guy just attacking correct.
Or because of what he is. So that honestly, I think would’ve been a stronger thing to do.
Rhys: Yeah. And I’m not even saying that’s necessarily right, but it’s definitely plausible. Yeah, I can see that. Because it seems like on this island, if she’s not bound, she can do whatever the hell she wants. She runs the place.
It also is a good scene that these three guys haven’t been forgotten by the authorities. The authorities have sent people out after them. So
Stephen: Many moles in their flock. .
Rhys: Yes, exactly. Thomas gets in the way. Between this guy and Malcolm and really saves Malcolm’s life. He gets himself cut for it.
And, but his delay is enough for Malcolm to get back and for Malcolm’s guards to come up and just completely skewer this guy in the middle of the floor of the church.
Stephen: And if you look, he lives a little bit, he has five spears through him. And if you look, it looks like both lungs are punctured, yet he’s breathing and talking fairly well for someone that is dying, which is a minor nitpick.
But I was just kinda come on, .
Rhys: I, there are guys on YouTube who are like er doctors and they’ll watch movies and it’s just so funny to, because they’ll go through and they’ll be like, yeah, you’re not saying anything after that. You’re not getting up after that just happened to you.
Stephen: Just oh, no one just looked obvious.
He literally had two spears. Yeah.
Rhys: Thomas’ Sacrifice makes a big impact on Malcolm, and he does this whole blood brother thing with him as Thomas is lying on the table waiting for Andrea to stitch him up. While there, he overhears them saying that they know the ransom holder is still hidden among them so they can bring the girl out and show him the consequences of not paying.
So that night, the assassin is being drugged through the streets by a horse. There’s this little scene of conversation between Thomas and Andrea. It turns out her mother died giving birth to her. Frank is the only one who can look at her and see her for herself, not seeing her mother in what he’s looking at.
She tops him off with a few drops of laden them, which I thought, oh lucky him. We got a little free dose there. There’s definitely something going on between them By the end of that scene, you know that, there’s this kind of romantic thing. After the night Bell, Malcolm brings out Thomas’s sister and makes an announcement that she will suffer the heathens stand if he doesn’t come out.
We don’t know what the hens stand is, but we hear that she’s going to suffer it if he doesn’t come out. Thomas holds firm. So they start as you typically do for some god forsaken reason in society with a woman. You cut her hair, . So they start to cut her hair and wasn’t
Stephen: that back in the Greek days didn’t Hercules get his hair cut or somebody, some big powerful guy because it was a symbol of power.
Rhys: Sampson and Delilah Sampson. Yeah.
Stephen: Okay. Yeah.
Rhys: And the Belgians did it to women who slept with Germans in World War ii. They’d shave their heads as a mark of shame.
Stephen: They can’t just put an a on their blouse. ?
Rhys: No. Hawthorne had that cornered in the American
Stephen: market. Oh, it was copyrighted okay.
That’s right.
Rhys: In Martyrs, the girls running through the tunnel, her head shaved cause Yeah it’s a sign of your independence gone. So they bring her out, they cut her hair. Music’s driving to this crescendo as Thomas contemplates taking more laden them, but instead he breaks his bottle.
But he doesn’t break. He doesn’t go out to rescue her or anything like that. And in fact, the next morning she’s lying on the ground by the statue of the cloaked woman. And there’s kids like messing with her and stuff, but he doesn’t even acknowledge her existence. Whenever he’s out and about moving through.
Fi is giving herself a pelvic exam in the bathroom. And her father’s looking through a hole in the wall, which is pretty disgusting. Yeah. Speaking of
Stephen: perverted creepers. . Yeah.
Rhys: As he backs up, he steps on a creaking board so she knows somebody was there. Then he puts his hand over the hole what’s that gonna do?
You can’t move. So she opens the door. You’re gonna be standing there with your hands. Yeah. .
Stephen: And you know about here I started and we’ve talked about midsummer a lot cuz of the cult. They’re very, type similar in midsummer. I never got the complete evil feel. What they were doing never came across as evil.
It was just no life and part of the thing. But here it’s definitely manmade evil totally different ways of viewing a cult-like group.
Rhys: Absolutely. In fact, Midsummer. Yeah, the cult seemed pretty cool. .
Stephen: Yeah. Except for, 72. That’s it. And yeah, if you’re an outsider, we’re using you
Rhys: But even in this the three le, the cult members aren’t bad. And the three leaders of the cult, I wouldn’t say they’re all bad. Quinn is an evil bastard. There’s no two ways around that. He’s a sociopath, and most of the guys who work for Malcolm, like the guys in the matching garb with the Billy Clubs, they all seem to be like brutal people.
But, Frank and Malcolm. Frank especially is like later in the movie, he’s I don’t want any part of this anymore.
Stephen: Yeah. They’re believers, they’re true. But the film the viewpoint of the film comes across as more evil cult, whereas Midsummer, it really didn’t, arguably yeah.
Rhys: I think with this, you get the power of personality.
Yes. In this, because Quinn basically later in the film, just takes over. He’s got this hard personality, he’s just gonna do it his way, and he’s just going to kill you if you get in his way. And he has people who are backing him up on
Stephen: it. And he wanted that. He, what he did, he’s uses it as an excuse and it doesn’t bother him.
And he won that power. Yeah. He felt jealous. Really.
Rhys: Mid-summer. On the other hand, there’s no individual, it’s the entire community working as. Yeah. Because in this, you actually get parts where like the people who live there are scared of Quinn and his men. Yeah. They won’t go rise up against him.
And in mid-summer everybody was like, Hey, you know what you need this girl drowned, we’ll drown her in a lake and then, put her in this place and catch the place on fire. . That sounds good. But here have
Stephen: some drugs first. . Yeah, .
Rhys: So the children are there poking poking Jennifer with sticks.
They’re braiding her hair. Malcolm looks on and he seems to find some distaste for the whole situation. Coming back to the conversation we just had. Yeah. He and Quin are making plans. They’ll have this celebration while everyone’s there. They’ll search the rooms. Andrea comes out and chases the children away and brings food, water, and a blanket to Jennifer and promises that no one will harm her.
Liar. The guards then take Jennifer at gunpoint and put her in a cart and drive off. Which I thought she’s tied up and she’s a woman and you put her in a cart. You don’t really need the gun, do you?
Stephen: tough guy. And also they’re trying to draw out this traitor, but it doesn’t seem like there’s, thousands of people in this group.
There’s 50, and we just got 10 more. So I didn’t see why it was so hard to figure out who was the traitor coming in
Rhys: here. Thomas tells Jeremy to be ready. That night. Everyone is at the celebration, they’re dancing, whooping it up. Malcolm is leaving his room as he is. There’s. Sorry, Thomas is leaving his room and as he is, there’s a child in a mask in the hallway, hang out where that ghostly woman was.
You’re like, oh, is this another thing? And no, it’s just a kid. Thomas pulls out a finger gun and shoots the kid who giggles and staggers off. Ah, fun times being shot by a madman, . Then he heads off to the ceremony where Andrea comes up to him and there’s this whole seduction scene kind going on and Andrea notes how rough his hands are and that his eyes have seen things.
And just as she’s wondering who he is, Jeremy is walking off to meet him, so he has to leave. So there’s really no romance that happens between the two of them, but Right. It’s nice thought. , they’ve got lanterns, they’re crawling under Malcolm’s house and Thomas is chiseling into the stone wall that separates the outside of Thomas, of Malcolm’s house and the tunnel.
And while they’re doing this, Quinn and Malcolm are searching rooms. And as they are, they happen to find the hidden map of the complex that Thomas drew earlier. And Malcolm realizes it’s March on its house. There’s a tunnel there. Oh my God. They’re probably at the tunnel. They can’t be at the tunnel.
Stephen: Which I, again, from the story standpoint, I know why they did this, but considering there’s like just a handful of buildings that you can see from any building, and the only house that gets marked with anything is that one. It seemed like the map was a little unnecessary that led them to him. Yeah.
Which is why they did it. But it’s really you couldn’t keep that one item in your head. , ,
Rhys: Thomas is headed into the tunnel. He tells Jeremy to close it behind him. Gives him a gun and tells him to use it if he runs into any problem. Sure enough, he’s caught by Frank, his father and Frank lets him go and then Frank realizes that Thomas is in the tunnels.
Frank is told to grab a gun and to follow Thomas into the tunnels. And I’ll be honest, I 110% expected Frank to die in this scene. , Malcolm wants him taken alive, but Quinn tells Frank to shoot him if he sees him. So there we have the contrast between those two guys. Andrea sees this interaction as well and takes note.
Malcolm takes a horse and heads off to where the tunnel opens out to out by the barn. He is also armed. Thomas, in the meantime, is moving through this water-filled tunnel and discovers it’s not water below his feet, but it’s blood. And Al it looks like he’s about to exit. Where Malcolm Waits, he’s gonna exit out by the barn.
But Malcolm’s standing out there with a gun pointing it at the door, but then Malcolm’s horse nickers and it gives Malcolm away. And so Thomas heads back and when he hears Frank coming on his way, he lowers himself down into this kind of tunnel under the floor that’s full of the blood and the oval.
Yeah, Frank goes right past him and heads for the door where Malcolm is. This is where I thought Frank was gonna die. Malcolm doesn’t wait for him to come out. He blows a hole in the door and wounds Frank. Thomas, on the other hand, is working his way through. He comes across a bunch of rats who are like swimming around in the gunk.
They’re not having a good time cuz they can’t get out. And then this female figure outta nowhere crawls out of the slime and starts coming towards him as he’s backing away, it’s following. And he ends up backing himself into this small cave, which is dry. He falls into it. And there’s bones and things across it.
Yeah, there’s a little trickle of water. He cleans himself up as best he can and then he finds, which
Stephen: I thought was hilarious, little trickle of water. He goes and his face is perfectly clear everywhere. .
Rhys: Yeah. The rest of his clothes look okay. Yeah. He cleans up as best he can. He finds these pictographs depicting people, worshiping her.
The scene cross fades from there to her in a. and Malcolm is in there and talking to her and he starts to accuse her of showing herself to Thomas. Why would you do that? He wonders and he threatens to withhold food from her. She’s lapping up this blood and then you have this creepy figure in the background who is lowering a figure into a sack, which he then hoist up into the air.
It sounds a whole lot like Jennifer. Yeah.
Stephen: And so we know at this point, that’s the she the god. And has there ever in history been a story where man captures and tries to control a God and it ends well, , it’s very mythology. It’s very classical type of story here.
Yeah. But it just, it doesn’t end well. Yeah. And the fact that they have to con contain her and trap her to control her, it’s yeah, that’s not gonna be good. Yeah.
Rhys: Actual worship probably
Stephen: would’ve worked much better. Yeah. Probably.
Rhys: The next day, Thomas wakes up to find Andrea’s in the cave with him.
She brings him clean clothes. She sees the scars on his back, and he
Stephen: starts, she peaks while he is undressing.
Rhys: Yeah, . He starts to explain, his backstory and it turns out he was a missionary who was in China during the Boxer Rebellion. And for those of you don’t know, during the Boxer Rebellion in the late 19th century China just got fed up with all the foreigners and is we’re kicking you all out and is if you’re religious, we’re gonna torture and kill you first.
And he, like so many of the missionaries back then, he had to watch all of his companions as they’re being killed. He’s calling out to God for deliverance. They brand him with this giant red hot cross. It broke his faith. He considers his sister the only thing that’s pure in the world. And he takes this almost sarra kind of tone where it’s not that he doesn’t believe in God, but he thinks God is cruel and God just doesn’t care.
Stephen: And it also, this isn’t the first movie where we’ve had some real world history blended in. Yeah. Hey, we’re doing an educational service with these
Rhys: hormones. That’s right. We should see if we can get a grant from the Department of Education. That
Stephen: would be awesome.
Rhys: Yeah. Then he and Andrea start to debate how evil her father and her uncles are. Cuz she’s no, they’re not. And he’s yeah, trust me, they are . Back in the village, Quinn is in his house brooding and Jeremy is carving the word hope into a wooden plank for a door for he and fi when they get away.
Malcolm is looking for Frank. Andrea’s taken Thomas to a spot hidden among the reeds, and he’s inspecting the reeds and finds them full of rot and smut which is not like smut like porn, but like smut, like the growth that grows and kills corn and things like that.
Stephen: It’s very black and oily looking it’s bad.
Yeah.
Rhys: Jeremy has found out that he needs that he’s gonna be a father and he admits to Frank that he wants to flee to the mainland With Frank Fien seems ready to go. Jeremy runs out to get the carving unaware that Quinn watched him leave. And so Quinn comes in and confronts her and he’s all heartbroken and enraged, closes the door and promptly begins beating on her.
Malcolm confronts Frank at the dock saying, what are you doing? And Frank’s grown this conscience and Frank calls Malcolm out for all of the current bullshit, and Malcolm tries to get me to agree to stay and help me fix it, but it’s too late for Frank. Frank’s just no, I’m done. I’m out of this. Yeah.
Quinn wants to know whose child it is. He finds out it’s Jeremy’s and he tells her the child is a bastard abomination. And this is the part where I, the second time watching it where I was like, oh shit. He’s got a point. Anything born on that island comes out as some twisted abomination and their cousins, which is gonna help.
Oh. Yeah, he’s not wrong. Yeah. But his bedside manner needs a little adjusting. He
Stephen: doesn’t think so. He wants power and
Rhys: control. Yeah. He apparently plans on cutting the baby out. Very Caligula esque of him . And when Jeremy shows back up, he sees the aftermath. Finn’s lying. They’re dead on the floor because what does Quinn know about a cesarean section?
What does anyone know in. Oh eight about a cesarean section, quinn tells him it’s all his fault. And then the kid goes after him with a straight razor and does a really good job. He messes him up. Good. Just not good enough. , right?
Stephen: The kid’s got spunk and he is wiry and he is really pissed off.
But the other guy’s a big guy.
Rhys: He is. And he gets qu, he tosses Jeremy off, runs out, cries for help, and screams that Jeremy killed his daughter. And here’s where he is playing That whole cult of personality thing. Everyone’s like, oh, you can’t question Quinn. And the holy, Jeremy sees what’s going on and he just takes off and the Holy Guard is on his trail and this is exactly the kind of thing they love.
This is what they train for. Yeah. . So Quinn calls for the heathen stand for holy purification. And someone’s who? Malcolm’s the only one who can do that. And he’s Nope, me, I’m doing it now. This is my village.
Stephen: Now, I also questioned, they were in this area with all the dead grass, the dead plants and they can’t grow their crops.
They’re all dying. But how come the rest of the island is lush green? ?
Rhys: Nobody can eat grass, Steve.
Stephen: Okay, so that spot’s kind of dead. Why don’t we go plant over in the other 85% of the island? That’s all still good.
Rhys: She’s only killing useful plants, out in the reeds, Thomas can hear, there’s a bell being rung and Jeremy’s on the run.
He’s running out in the reeds cuz he knows Andrea’s little secret spot. Secret spot. He finds Andrea and he tells her what happened. And Quinn’s men catch up with him, carting him off, literally carrying him away. Back in the village, they’re constructing this large wooden device. Quinn stands to the head of it, flanked by two men in black hoods.
And the entire town has turned out to watch. Yeah, they
Stephen: do this very medieval,
Rhys: he does this thing with camera angles and I think he overuses it where he takes the camera and he like, shows it upside down and then rotates it slowly until you’re back. And Midsummer did the same kind of thing, but sparingly they didn’t use it quite as frequently as he does in this.
So like the second or third time that he does this in this movie, I’m kinda like, yeah, okay, we get it. You like to flip your camera
Stephen: around? This one made sense cuz they were showing like the camera from the kid’s angle. That one made sense. He’s coming into the scene. Yeah. Yeah. A whole lot. I agree.
Rhys: They put Thomas on this device, which basically clamps his arms and legs in place so he can’t move them.
And then his head as well. Andrea calls Quinn out saying that he can’t do this. He ignores or please the men grabbed Thomas. There’s a guy on either side of him, and he basically, Quinn basically tells Andrea that he killed Finn. But it, it’s like this quiet kind of whisperer ha, I did this.
And then he shaves the top of Jeremy’s head and there’s a whole saw that he brings out with a crank. And they just whole saw directly into his brain
Stephen: case very dramatically. And, . Yes.
Rhys: Once the hole is there, he pulls out this symbol of purity, which just looks like a little scrap of cloth or something, and puts it in the hole and declares.
Oh, better now. Oh, better .
Stephen: Yeah. was that was a very gruesome scene. Yes. To, yes,
Rhys: it was. Yeah. And the winners of the worst timing award go to Malcolm and Frank who show up just at the end. . Malcolm realizes what has happened in the power structure. He’s uhoh, I’m not in charge anymore.
He tries to win the crowd back, but Quinn basically puts him in a bind by demanding oh yeah, you, you’re tough enough to lead us. Why don’t you kill Thomas and Andrea’s you can’t do that. Don’t be the man. , they want you to be. But he has them pulled Thomas to his feet and he’s just about to cut his, just about ready to kill him.
And this gun goes off. Frank is running off with a gun and he’s just saying she has to die.
Stephen: And the thing I see here, and it could be a subtext of the whole movie, is we have this religious cult that arguably. Was started with good intentions. It has gotten corrupted evil. So the power hungry guy is taking charge and the people are going with it because the corruption underneath has been boiling and making things bad.
They’re, they need food. They want something to change. So that gives the power, that’s, a modern thing that happens how many times, that we see throughout history,
Rhys: we want change. So we’re gonna do this. That’s not gonna help. We don’t care. We want
Stephen: change. Yeah. And it gives the greedy power, hungry the chance to rise.
Rhys: Yeah. And people take advantage of it, for sure. Yeah. Quinn and Malcolm take off after Frank because if Frank does manage to kill her, this whole jig is up. Thomas takes this opportunity to pretty effortlessly kill both of the guys who are holding him. Yeah. Again, just showing that when he wants to, he can be very effective at this.
Stephen: Yeah. He seems to, like you said, does get some divine intervention of some sort at Yeah, quite often. ,
Rhys: Andrea begs him to spare her father’s life. So we have Frank, who’s run off into the woods to kill her. Thomas takes off into the woods figuring that Jennifer’s there. He’s following behind.
Frank turns and shoots at Thomas. Who while he ducks behind a tree, just sees her walking through the forest. She’s doing one of her. Hey, here I am. Frank runs into the barn and Thomas is about to follow him when the gun goes off and you’re like, Ooh, he’s succeeded. But no, he’s been shot. He comes out, he is, been gut shot.
He says, burn it all down. And then he is shot in the back and out Stepss the masked monstrosity, the great big guy in the credits. He’s listed as the grinder.
Stephen: Ooh, oh yeah I’d love to be at the horror convention saying I was the grinder. That’s, yeah.
Rhys: Unless it was pepper , it’s wearing a mask, so it can’t really see very well peripherally as it comes out.
Thomas just ducks away around behind the building. , nothing to see here. Climbs underneath the barn, moves some boards and ends up. Back inside the mark
Stephen: and still doesn’t get noticed. ,
Rhys: okay. Okay. There’s all the other crap outside. Quinn and Malcolm get into it, and Quinn just shoots Malcolm.
And Malcolm falls down into the tunnels seemingly unconscious. And Quinn just leaves him there for dead. And honestly, Malcolm’s a non he’s not even a factor in the rest of this movie, honestly. Yeah he shows up at the end. But back in the barn, Thomas is hiding around. He sees half corpses lying on the ground.
He’s watching this freak he’s watching the grinder force feeded her meat through a funnel. . And if you were wondering if it was a horror movie, it’s pretty firmly established by him now.
Stephen: That’s now we know the supernatural elements. Here’s the horror elements.
Rhys: Yes. Thomas is looking around at the bodies in the hanging sacks, and he finds Jennifer, who is still alive.
He manages to get her sack down and he gets her out. But the reunion is short-lived as the grinder. It clubs him unconscious. Quinn is there as he’s passing out and takes Jennifer away with him. Now Andrea is in her quarters praying to, I don’t think she’s praying to her. No, I think Andrea’s like praying to the Christian.
God. He only, then she sees that Quinn is behind her with shackles in his hand, so he’s taking her. We cut back to Thomas, and he is on this kind of device that has these wires with hooks, and the hooks are in his hands. It’s connected to this great big meat grinder, and the freak is turning the handle, pulling him close and closer to the grinder.
This reminded me a whole lot of a James Bond escape scene, right? .
Stephen: This also, this whole last bit of scene is a lot like any of the Texas Chainsaw massacre movies too. Yes. It seemed a lot
Rhys: like that. There’s gore, there’s a fight. Good guy walks away at the end and I could just leave it at that.
He manages he loses three fingers on one of his hands, but in doing so, it frees that hand. And so he uses that freed hand. He gets in a fight with With the grinder gets a chain wrapped around his neck, sets off some counterweight, which snaps the guy’s neck. Yeah. And kills
Stephen: him. maybe this is the reason he took the latum the whole time because he’s basically numb, so it didn’t stop him when he was like, during all of this.
Yeah.
Rhys: So the grinder’s, he’s left alone and her addresses Thomas in a foreign tongue. And as a guy who like studies Gaelic and things like that, it was not that , it wasn’t any of the Celtic languages as I recognized them. But, there’s a lot, there were a lot there. And I don’t know enough.
I couldn’t tell you any monks or Cornish or Breton for that matter. So maybe it was, but she she dresses Thomas in a foreign tongue and gets up out of her little nest and touches his head and she tells him that she knew he was coming. He falls to his knees. And we cut to this scene outside where two of Quinn’s men find this figure in the woods in a cloak, and they cautiously approach.
And you can see from the camera angle that it’s her who smiles as the camera cuts away. So we’re figuring, oh, it’s not good for these two guys. No. Quinn ends up chaining these ladies to a tower wall in the church and he goes through this whole monologue and he basically tells them that he’s the one who imprisoned her.
And he started force feeding her animal product. And he has, he always resented the power that Malcolm has had over the cult.
Stephen: And this is a little bit of. Good versus evil. Malcolm I think did have good intentions originally. Yeah. A little bit of power hungry maybe, but and it shows how it got corrupted and the evil is now taking over, winning.
That could be a subtext of this movie
Rhys: also. Yeah. I see him on the spectrum where you have Frank, who is a good guy basically. And then you have Malcolm in the middle. . That was so funny.
And then you have Quinn who’s evil. And if you ever needed to know, Quinn is definitely just basically saying that, I’m the bad one here. Yeah. . And they ping pong back and forth between Quinn Monologuing to these ladies and to Thomas. Her is showing Thomas all of this history, like directly into his brain and asks him to set her free.
And apparently the way to do that is to get up and light the place on fire, cuz
Stephen: that’s what he does. That’s a trope in a lot of the horror movies, sure. The, that’s a purifying
Rhys: fire. Yeah, exactly. She seems to be happy about it as everything starts to burn. He asks her forgiveness and she just finally sits there and burns as he backs out of the burning barn.
Malcolm is alive in the tunnel and hears her scream. So apparently she wasn’t happy the whole time. He sticks his head out to see the barn burning, and then Thomas is running through the woods. And pause is just long enough to see that all of Quinn’s men are stuck in branches way up in the tree.
And by stuck, I mean impaled on .
Stephen: Yeah. Now uh, you also gotta wonder why no, why, big secret tunnel and all that. And yet there’s this barn that anybody could find and walk to and check out and discover the secret. Yeah. That was a little janky to me, ,
Rhys: especially on an island because yeah, eventually everyone sees everything on an island.
Yeah. Quinn is still going on and he’s saying that she is no God. He tells ’em that they’re gonna be trapped in the tower for the rest of their lives and he’ll rape them and feed their children to her. Just in case you wondered if he was actually bad .
Stephen: It’s right about he must the twirl.
Rhys: Yeah. And a train line to chain them on
Yes. It’s right about then that he hears cries of fire as the, now the entire town is on fire.
Stephen: Which, where’d that come from, but Okay. . Yeah.
Rhys: It could be like the forest fire thing where you have embers, hot embers going up in the air and being blown and falling down onto a thatch roof kinda deal.
Stephen: The barn was close enough to do that and nobody ever checked it out again. seems a little plot hole there. Again,
Rhys: you could also just say that it’s the nature goddess who lives here who’s you know what, wind. Yeah. And it would’ve been cool to see that.
Stephen: Yeah. That would’ve been, would’ve cost more budget.
Yeah.
Rhys: Quinn is acting super tough as he backs away pointing his gun at the women, and when he turns, Thomas is there and plunges a blade into his chest. He and Thomas start this fight, which has him stabbed Thomas repeatedly in the side. Thomas. Puts up with a lot. Yeah. Of abuse from this guy.
The girls get a hold of Quinn’s gun and shoot the chain, holding them in the wall. And then Andrea grabs the chain and Strangles Quinn, and then Thomas grabs a knife and pulls it down into Quinn’s chest. How
Stephen: superhuman strong as he to take that and drag it down through his sternum and everything. I was like, okay, come on,
But Quinn’s
Rhys: finally dead ,
Stephen: we hope. Yeah. Geez movie. A Army movie
Rhys: now. Yeah, the three of them take off towards the boats, but Thomas can’t keep up. He’s resolved himself to his own death and he’s just happy that Jennifer’s gonna survive. He asked Andrea to pave, pray for him as she leads his sister away, and then it, he fades back and he just stares up at the sky.
The girls make it to the docks and are about to get on the boat as a scream goes up and a cliff blows and blood and al just spill out into the bay.
Stephen: Lots of it. Which I was like, eh, I don’t know if that’s necessary, but I guess it shows the end of
Rhys: the purification of the island. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Jennifer Weeps and Andrea’s trying to comfort her as the boats being rode away, and Thomas is lying on the hillside. As Malcolm walks up watching the boats leave Thomas notes that where the blood is being spilled, plants are sprouting, and he smiles and lays back as plants around him flourish.
Stephen: And that’s, and they go burrow into him. So obviously he’s the next God of the
Rhys: island. And that’s it. It’s ambiguous enough that maybe he dies and it’s his sacrifice that brings the island back to life. Or maybe he progresses to another stage. One of those kind of things where you can sit there and decide for yourself how you want it to end.
Stephen: Yeah. It definitely was, like you said, ambiguous and a little bit felt more uplifting like the evil was gotten. Yeah. That’s the whole reason they wanted to do, needed to do
Rhys: this. Yeah. And it’s not a coincidence that his name’s Thomas of all of the apostles and the movie’s called Apostle, but all of Jesus’s Apostle Thomas is the one who had doubts.
He had to see concrete evidence that Jesus had been resurrected. Here you have another guy who’s lost his faith and he’s shown evidence that there’s this supernatural entity here and lots of evidence as in it’s growing grass into his body now. . Yeah.
Stephen: Or this is just his dying delusions That can be argued, too, that Oh,
Rhys: absolutely.
But this is, like I was saying, this is not one where you’re gonna sit there and be like, huh, I wonder if this is just someone going crazy. No, this is like an entire community and a definite, supernatural entity. Yeah,
Stephen: definitely. Unlike a few of the others that were much more questionable as to what was going on.
Correct. Yeah. So
Rhys: there’s apostle. We’ll be going back to the Ambiguous. Is it crazy or is it Memorex? In our next film, which is Black Mountainside.
Stephen: Black Mountainside, it’s a Led Zeppelin song. . It should be, is it Black Mountainside? I’m pretty sure it isn’t it? I don’t know. I’ll have to look that up.
I thought it was. .
Rhys: However, it again, is one of those movies where you’ll be sitting there and you’ll, when we’re done, we’re gonna sit there and we’re gonna have a discussion about was there actually any kind of supernatural thing here happening? Or did a bunch of people just lose their heads ,
Stephen: which happens a lot.
It, for those that have made it to this upson, listen we are getting them out regularly. We’re not pushing ourselves cuz, we have lives and families and day jobs. So we’re getting them out on the first and third Friday of every month and it’s been pretty steady for the last couple months.
This one will probably be out, maybe like the first one in October. I think. I have to look at the actual numbers, but yeah, they’re coming out pretty good. Anyone that’s listened this far, there you go. .
Rhys: Yeah, there you go, Amy, who’s stuck with us this long?
Stephen: All right man. So black mountainside coming up next.
Rhys: Yep.
