Apostle: Good (side of Humanity) vs Evil (side of Humanity)

Apostle is a period-horror, written, directed and edited by Gareth Evans, that follows Thomas (Dan Stevens), a man that infiltrates a cult on a remote island to rescue his captured sister.

It seems like the last couple of years, the folk-horror genre has had a resurgence amongst the more popular and widespread movie circuit thanks to films like The VVitch.
I, for one, am quite happy about this. I loved The Wicker Man (yes, the 1973 original as well as the shitty 2006 remake, for very different reasons, of course), The Blair Witch Project (obviously) and even The Village (sue me).

It used to be me forcing culty, let’s-sacrifice-some-children, there’s-a-witch-in-these-here-woods-type horrors and thrillers down my friends’ throats, whereas now, people are coming to me with these films to add to my watchlist.

Apostle has been patiently waiting in my Netflix List since I subscribed to the platform, and during one of our Bi-Weekly Watch Party sessions, my friend and I decided to finally watch it.

As always, even though I am not going into all the detail, I will be discussing certain plot points, so, SPOILER ALERT.

In 1905, Thomas Richardson travels to a Welsh island, posing as a convert to rescue his kidnapped sister, Jennifer, who is being held for ransom by a mysterious goddess-worshipping cult.

The viewer meets the community’s charismatic leader, Malcolm (played spectacularly, I might add, by Michael Sheen), who along with elders, Quinn (who is also Malcolm’s brother) and Frank, form the founding members of the cult. They preach of a deity that watches over the colony and keeps the land fertile and in return, they offer their goddess blood sacrifice.

As expected, Thomas starts exploring the island at night, looking for his sister. During one of his little adventures, he comes across Frank’s son, Jeremy, and Quinn’s daughter, Ffion, on a night stroll after some ‘Horizontal Refreshment’ (I’m keeping it clean, okay? These are adults playing teenagers, after all).

Terrified of being told on, the teenagers spill the beans and Thomas finds out exactly why his sister is being held captive. Apparently, the island does not have enough resources and the cult needs the ransom money for animals to sacrifice to keep up with the deity’s needs.

During the day, Malcolm meets with some of the community’s newcomers, Thomas included. One of the new members attempts to assassinate Malcolm and Thomas intervenes, getting injured in the process.

Now in Malcolm’s good graces, Thomas’s wounds are seen to and he is held up in the big house, and Jennifer’s paraded around the town and tied to a wooden pole in hopes of making her co-conspirator reveal themselves.

Amongst all this, Thomas encounters and is chased by an old woman and realises the goddess he has been hearing about is all too real (basically she is this really old woman imprisoned by what seems like all the tree-roots in the world, in a barn just outside of town and the encounter Thomas had, was not physically with her, but rather an apparition of her trying to reveal herself to him). Malcolm’s daughter, Andrea, helps him to safety and we learn a little more about Thomas’s background; he has lost his faith years ago during the Boxing Rebellion where he was persecuted while a Christian missionary introducing Christianity to China.

The movie starts to really pick up the pace as Jeremy discovers Ffion is pregnant with his child, and the two decide to elope.

Shit spirals out of control when Quinn finds out about his daughter’s unborn child and plan to run away. He kills his own daughter in a forced abortion and frames Jeremy for the crime. Jeremy is punished (read: murdered) in a ‘purification’ ritual, where he is tied to a table and a large screw is hand-drilled into his skull.

Can I just say that Jeremy’s death was one of the most memorable scenes in Apostle? His death and the few moments before the piece of metal is forced into his head, is shot from his perspective, as in we literally see it happening through Jeremy’s own eyes. (It’s the stuff great ‘reacting to’ style videos are built on, man).

Quinn sees his opportunity to take power and calls Malcolm a false prophet, and demands that Malcolm proves otherwise by killing Thomas. Understandably still upset by the brutal death of his son, Frank attacks Quinn and Thomas flees with Frank to where the goddess is being hidden with the intention of killing her.

Frank is killed by the Grinder, a masked creature that watches over the goddess. Thomas finds his sister, bagged and strung up, ready to be sacrificed. Before he completely frees her, he is attacked.

Thomas wakes up tied to meat-grinder-table (yeah, let’s call it that) with hooks embedded into his hands and feet. After a bit of struggle, he escapes and kills the masked figure.

During this, Quinn is relaying his plan all old-school-villain-style to a captured Jennifer and Andrea. He intends on keeping the two women there, to continually impregnate them and offer the resulted children as blood sacrifices.

Back to Thomas alone with the goddess. She shows him how the cult and their religion came to be and practically begs him to relieve her of her misery. Thomas complies and sets the foliage embedded in her on fire. This leads to the fire growing and the entire town starts to be engulfed by flames, forcing the cult members to retreat to the beach and take the boats off-shore.

Thomas finds Quinn with Andrea and Jennifer and the three of them attack and kill him (also, Thomas gets injured in the process, because apparently, that’s what he does) before making their way to the boats.

Halfway there, Thomas collapses, forcing the women to leave him behind. Just as peace washes across his face, and it seems as if Thomas is succumbing to his wounds, an injured Malcolm appears and sits next to him. Thomas’s blood seeps into the soil and greenery around him envelopes him. He opens his eyes and we can see them taking the same shape and colour of the goddess’s.

I can’t say I was expecting this ending when the film started. Seeing as these types of films usually end on a darker note, this was quite a pleasant surprise.

Apostle took an already-done idea and almost turned it on its head. Instead of making the cult, it’s practices or some deity the antagonist, and pitting it against our protagonist, the film focused more on what people will do (whether good or bad) to protect what is important to them. Rather than have two distinct sides (with a clear indication of who sits on which side), it celebrates the potential for human goodness in direct contrast to the same amount of potential humankind has for evil. That (supported by stand-out performances and a great aesthetic) is what makes Apostle such a great film.

The fact that this is a Gareth Evans production makes it even more impressive. I’m not saying that Evans is not good at what he does, but a slow-paced but violent look at the polarising sides of humanity that leads to rebirth and faith-restoration does not really fall into what is expected of the Raid director.

At first glance, Apostle might seem like your run of the mill period-piece horror that ends on a sappier-than-expected note, but it is so, so much more than that.