APOSTLE: NETFLIX'S LATEST REALLY HOLDS THE DARK.

You ever just know a movie is for you?  You watch a few images flash before your eyes and all but know for a scientific fact you're gonna love this film or television show?  This was pretty much the case from the first trailer for Netflix's "Apostle".   I was sold that this movie was going to be one that would engrave itself into my psyche, and it didn't disappoint.  An unnerving, spellbinding, violent,  knot turning in your stomach kind of suspense horror thriller,  that doesn't let go once it gas you in its grip - the film is as unforgiving as it is visually arresting.  Our story begins with the troubled Richardson family and more specifically a brother Thomas (Dan Stevens)  sent off to rescue and bring back his kidnapped  sister from a cult holding her for ransom.  What ensues from there on is the tale of a man who will slowly become reinvigorated with the idea of connecting back with the one tie he has to this world,  and thusly back to the world and eventually his faith but only after confronting the darkness corroding the town from within.  Though the film comes off at first as an attack on faith and religion on the whole rather than fanaticism it is not.  There are very clear signs that this is in fact a film about faith, and maintaining it when surrounded by men and women who have either forgotten, or perverted it's central tenets.  But those are not central to the experience of Apostle as much as they are subtext.   What anyone going into this movie needs to know is that it taxes the hell out of the  senses - through imagery, gore and suspense.  Medieval torture devices,  camera angles,  and brutal depictions of torture and murder are deployed to maximum effect for mood and tone corroborating with the greater themes of the film.  And it can be exhausting though never gratuitous,  and plenty exhilarating while also grating the nerves.

 What tells me that I love this movie is not the fact that I ignored many of its possible flaws, but that I just didn't notice them at all, at least not in this first viewing.  One thing I don't want to lose as a movie viewer, and even as a critic, is that ability to want to enjoy a movie and not necessarily to approach the experience from a sort of clinical position where I am simply looking for what it isn't doing, or how well it adheres to film theory.  I want to first just enjoy it on the level of being a person that enjoys movies,  as a patron who just wants to be taken on a ride.  For me, that is exactly what I got from Gareth Evans dark grisly fable.  I was thrilled,  put on the edge of my seat,  treated to white knuckle tension, gifted characters that I could relate to on some level, but more importantly, characters driven by marvelously committed actors that I didn't have to like to want them to win, or to root for them or hate them.   By the end, when the final events started to unfold, I noticed my shoulders dropping,  the air leaving my chest, the tension held for what seemed like nearly the entirety of the film being relieved, and I noticed how invested I was in the action unfolding before me because of the way my legs shifted,  fidgeting about.  The way my heart dropped in certain parts of the movie where it seemed that the cruelty was unrelenting informed me, I was immersed,  told me I was being engrossed,  and enthralled.

In these dark times I'm not one of these people that wants to be treated to something that makes me feel better, that assures me of my safety, and reminds me of good, I think I naturally have that buffer within.  I like being reminded of just how bad it can get, just how unjust the world can be, how unflinching.   A movie like the apostle is a great reminder, because it keeps a person with my natural temperament  vigilant,  sharp.   I don't think I have to recommend it for everybody but I do recommend it for those that always leaned a bit towards the dark side of themselves, who enjoy the tension and release horror gives maybe even on some masochistic level,  if only but to keep the guard there and keep the dark at bay.

The promise of the divine is but an illusion. From Gareth Evans, writer and director of The Raid franchise, comes Apostle. A Netflix film starring Dan Stevens and Michael Sheen - premieres October 12.