Obviously my title here is reductive. No three films can explain any other, especially when that other film is Apostle, the enormously rich new folk horror film by Gareth Evans. But this is a series we’re running (3 films that explain another)—and these three films do explain some things about Apostle, if not everything.
They are The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973) –not surprising because so far virtually everyone has compared the film to Hardy’s classic folk horror film—The Village (M. Night Shyamalan, 2004 ), and mother! (Darren Aronofsky, 2017), a film I express my loathing for here, but which is nonetheless an important film.
The influence of The Wicker Man on Apostle is everywhere, including the structuring plot. In Apostle’s present, 1905, Thomas (Dan Stevens) sets out to ransom his sister Jennifer (Elen Rhys) from a cult led by Prophet Malcolm (Michael Sheen) on a remote Welsh island. Like Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) in The Wicker Man, Thomas is being lured into the clutches of a violent pagan cult made desperate by the failure of their crops and the imminent prospect of starvation. Like Howie, Thomas doesn’t know what he’s getting into.
A new crop of believers arriving at the remote Welsh island
As in Wicker Man, the cult in Apostle demands blood sacrifice—and it’s very literal in Apostle, leading to some highly blood-soaked torture scenes that may seem gratuitous to some. But Evans is making a point. This cult demands blood, and Evans is not going to spare the viewer what fanatical religious conviction actually looks like. In The Wicker Man, fanaticism leads to a conflagration on a cliff as a man is burned, screaming, alive. In Apostle, religious conviction leads to excruciating bloody torture. Both films make a similar point about the extremes to which faith can lead.
Prophet Malcolm (Michael Sheen)
I won’t go into detail here to avoid spoilers, but both The Wicker Man and Apostle end on cliffs, high above the sea. These last scenes of both films link sublime beauty and death. In both films, there’s the suggestion that death may lead to renewal, that sacrifice may be regenerative. Indeed, that promise is held out far more strongly in Apostle, which encompasses a far greater faith in divinity than the more cynical Wicker Man. Apostle, it seems to me, seriously asks whether sacrifice is efficacious.
Near the ending
Apostle echoes Shyamalan’s The Village in its insular community, formed on the basis of a lie. But is it actually a lie? The original villagers in Shyamalan’s film founded their community in order to escape the traumas of modern life: in a very real way, the monsters they claim wait in the woods around the village are embodiments of those real traumas. And the village is their effort to seal themselves off from those lurking horrors of modernity. The fabricated monsters of The Village, in other words, are metaphors for very real traumas.
In Apostle, the cult is founded not on what is at its borders (monsters in the woods), but on what lies all around and underneath—a goddess (Sharon Morgan) called only “Her” in the credits who provides the islanders with sustenance but who then stops providing, despite all their sacrifices. The goddess can certainly be seen as a metaphor of nature itself—giving and not giving, bringing life and death, with a baffling fickleness.
Her (Sharon Morgan)
And the role of “Her” as a figure for nature brings us to Aronofsky’s mother! Mother (Jennifer Lawrence) in Aronofsky’s film is also a rather clear representation of Mother Nature. In both films we see how those (men) who worship her also brutalize her and how any kind of worship is always also steeped in violence. In both films, there are cycles—specifically repetitive scenes of burning away and renewal. And I have to say that I much prefer Evans’ representation of the “goddess” of nature.
Final conflagration in Apostle
Gareth Evans’ Apostle is a beautiful and provocative film, one steeped in the folk horror tradition. It’s brilliantly directed and acted–and it’s also brutal. A definite must-see. It’s currently streaming on Netflix.
Check out Gareth Evans in this short interview talking about how, among other things, Witchfinder General (Michael Reeves, 1968), The Wicker Man, and The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971) inspired him:
For more in this series, see posts on 3 films that’ll help you understand The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Phantom Thread.
