APOSTLE: Extreme, Gruesome Cult Tale Is Slightly Uneven

Apostle is not a normal cult movie, if there even is such a thing. It’s about a cult, but it’s shockingly, perhaps needlessly brutal in its depiction of graphic violence at the hands of fanatics and other frightening beings. When details first emerged about this long-awaited project from The Raid‘s Gareth Evans, the instant comparison was Robin Hardy‘s The Wicker Man. Well, let’s just say this one takes things a bit further than that seminal classic from 1973.

Of course, if you’re familiar with Evans‘ work on The Raid and its 2014 sequel (the superior film, in my humble opinion), this should come as no surprise. Yes, the filmmaker is maybe the modern master of high-octane action set-pieces, but his knack for blood and gore is also quite extreme. The Raid movies are nuts, and the idea of Evans cooking up an expansive horror movie for Netflix was always quite enticing.

Apostle is finally landing on laptops and TV screens across the globe, and it’s admittedly something of a mixed bag. Evans remains a visually astonishing director, but the story gets away from him a bit in this ambitious, inconsistent combination of myth and terror. And with a hammy Dan Stevens performance and a downright excessive runtime, the film can often be something of a challenge to endure. But even with that in mind, Evans‘ latest is impressively cruel and sinister, featuring enough stomach-churning, hair-raising moments to validate a couple hours of your time.

Investigation Of A Mysterious Community

Thomas Richardson (Stevens) was a dead man. At least that’s what everyone thought. Estranged from his family and suffering under the weight of a past we don’t initially understand, Thomas is called back home to hear some terrible news: his beloved sister has been taken by a cult. She’s being held hostage on an island, and the cult will only release her if the family pays a steep ransom. Thomas is tasked with investigating the island of Erisden and rescuing his sister from the clutches of these “blasphemers.”

The cult knows someone is coming to Erisden, but Thomas is smarter – and more cunning – than his fanatical counterparts. He switches luggage tags at the gate, allowing some poor true believer to be tortured and killed by Frank (Paul Higgins) and Quinn (Mark Lewis Jones), the right-hand men of the divine Prophet Malcolm (Michael Sheen). Thomas also makes a keen move to get on the prophet’s good side when he throws himself in harm’s way, essentially creating a lasting trust between himself and Malcolm. He infiltrates and makes a few crucial allies, observing their actions and moving closer to his goal.

But there’s great turmoil in Erisden, and Thomas just happens to be right in the thick of it. Malcolm and the others speak of a woman who controls the health of their land, but that couldn’t possibly be real, right? Political conflict is also a new factor in this purported utopia, as Malcolm, Quinn, and Frank clash over the future of the village. These tensions boil over soon enough, and it isn’t pretty for anyone involved.

Creepy Supernatural Twist On The Cult Genre

Apostle‘s ingenuity lies in its resistance to the specifics of a single genre, although it very broadly falls under the horror umbrella. There are only a few select scenes designed to make your skin crawl, but Evans incorporates so many other subgenres in what feels like a free-for-all of gleeful nastiness. Some of the more grisly moments function as early 20th century torture porn, while the core narrative truly does feel like a dark folk story brought to life. The opening credits feature a leather book cover with what appears to be a burning fire in the background; it’s like Evans is cracking open a good yarn around the campfire, preparing to spook us with a twisted, fantastical tale.

It’s all just ambiguous enough to be unsettling, with Evans preferring to keep viewers in the dark on some of his truly out-there turns. And once you realize what exactly Apostle is doing, there’s fun to be had with the sheer strangeness of it all. Part of me wishes the film offered concrete explanations for its supernatural reveals, but I understand the desire to keep things hazy.

Plus, when you’re working with a spectacular aesthetic master like Evans, the mystery is really only half of the equation. Apostle expands upon the formal prowess demonstrated in the Raid films, swapping bone-crunching action for some seriously messed-up horror. There are a few fight scenes here as well, and they’re as brutal and thrilling as you’d expect. But this time around, the atmosphere and world-building take center stage, serving as the perfect setting for some seriously unflinching displays of outrageous gore.

Messy Storytelling Hinders Bold Vision

However, in the process of switching from the realm of action madness to folk horror, Evans is presented with another major challenge. All due respect to the Raid movies, but a complex narrative wasn’t really a requirement of that genre. Here, telling a good story is a necessity – and it’s where the film loses its footing a bit. The mystery is compelling enough to sustain it all for a while, but Apostle is overstuffed and overlong at 130 minutes, saddled with just too much of everything.

For one, some characters strike me as unnecessary right off the bat. In my synopsis, I purposefully avoided talking about Ffion (Kristine Froseth) and Jeremy (Bill Milner), the film’s star-crossed lovers (except their respective fathers are close friends, which makes little sense). Their tragic romance does indeed serve as the spark for the finale’s graphic madness, but it basically feels like Evans decided to insert his take on Romeo and Juliet into this creepy horror movie. That’s all fine and well, but this (mostly uninteresting) romance takes up way too much screen time. In doing so, other potentially dynamic figures like Malcolm and his daughter Andrea (Lucy Boynton) end up getting the short end of the stick.

But the problems don’t end there. As much as I like Dan Stevens (his performance in Adam Wingard‘s The Guest is iconic), he’s taking things up a notch here in a way that veers into distracting territory. Speaking of taking things up a notch, the musical score from Aria Prayogi and Fajar Yuskemal cranks the action up to 11 at nearly every turn – and not in a good way. The screeching mix of strings and unnatural noises practically screams “THIS IS REALLY CREEPY, RIGHT?” to an extent that I found almost oppressive. When coupled with the needlessly sprawling story and the somewhat scattered pacing, the seams in Evans‘ latest endeavor begin to show.

Apostle: Conclusion

But before I finished this review, I opted to give the film another spin while I did some other things, just to get a feel for how some of my first impressions would hold up. And as much as I still recognized many of my original misgivings, I was increasingly captivated by some of the visual innovations, as well as the way the film subtly hints at its biggest reveal. Matt Flannery‘s cinematography is really outstanding, and the second half clicks in a grisly, nutty way.

So for every misstep in Evans‘ biggest swing yet, there’s another strange moment or well-executed idea to draw you back in. It all works to some kind of equilibrium, tilting in a positive direction based on ambition alone. If it’s undeniably riddled with imperfections, Apostle is still a worthy new venture from an abundantly talented filmmaker.

What did you think of Apostle? If you’re a fan of the Raid movies, were you excited to see Gareth Evans venture in a new direction? Let us know in the comments below!

Apostle was released worldwide on Netflix on October 12.