Apostle

Dan Stevens ventures, with a psycho frown, into a quirky sectarian community on a secret island where his sister has been abducted. The film maintains its atmosphere and pace from the very beginning and becomes more interesting with the arrival of the main protagonist on the island, where the rules of the local population and particularly the special mythology, according to which the community was built on the island, are slowly uncovered. But then the sectarian colony begins to collapse from the inside (unfortunately), the supporting characters begin to come to the forefront, and the story of the main protagonist falls by the wayside. Because of this the film loses steam slightly in the second half, which it tries to save with grateful scenes with a medieval lobotomy and a meat grinder. Except for the juicy gore scenes, there's nothing much reminiscent of Evans's previous films in this historical horror movie. (10/05/2018)

Dan Stevens goes to find his sister, who has been abducted by a strange cult from a remote island. But he discovers that this community has some ugly secrets that will soon raise hell. Action director Gareth Evans (The Raid) delivers a slow and very gritty film that isn't afraid to shy away from scares and relies on an interesting plot, good actors and a very uncomfortable atmosphere. Don't expect a classic horror film, though. (10/30/2018)

Gloomy, mysterious, brutally dark and finally after a long time also anoriginal film about something mysterious, evil, but also provocative and compelling you to learn more about it. After a long time, Apostle made me experience fear. Revulsion, too, but the fear was stronger. It was caused by a religious sect, from which I didn’t know what to expect, so I was gaping at the screen, bowing down before the director and director of photography at places, because the pictures of terror they came up with sent shivers down my spine. I wondered when was the last time something on TV made me feel like this and I think it was when I watched the first season of True Detective. And that was quite a few years ago. (12/11/2019)

The Wicker Man 1905, where one would expect that based on the style and the course of the movie the screenwriter and director would be S. Craig Zahler rather than Evans. Despite many flaws (especially the unjustified length and not used holiday masks), this is a very nice movie, which does not bring much new to the sectarian thrilleroid-horror subgenre, but is so well captured, played out, intense, bizarre and packed with uncompromising atmosphere what we can hardly view as a bad thing. (01/12/2019)

Gareth Evans, director of The Raid , serves up uncompromising period horror on an isolated island with a religious cult. Dan Stevens (The Guest) travels to an island to free his kidnapped sister, but the local religious fanatics are up to no good and there's plenty of danger ahead. The only downside is the running time of 2 hours and 10 minutes, with the first hour being considerably slower, but the second is so full of gripping scenes that Apostle becomes a definite genre gem and a tribute to the original The Wicker Man. Bleak atmosphere, with solid gore, it's incredibly raw with an excellent villain, where besides Michael Sheen I think his buddy Mark Lewis Jones shone more (I had respect for the guy), and the music is also great. The scariest scene in my opinion is the grandma who appears in a tunnel full of sh*t. I loved the nice dose of mystery and mystique at the end. Evans showed that not only action is one of his triumphs, but he has no problem making an atmospheric historical horror film. If it wasn't for the weaker first half, it would be a clear five stars. 85% (10/15/2018)