On Sunday, April 29, 1973, Sergeant Neil Howie with the West Highland Constabulary flies solo to Summerisle off the coast of Scotland. He is there to follow up on a letter addressed specifically to him from an anonymous source on Summerisle reporting that a twelve year old girl who lives on the island, Rowan Morrison, the daughter of May Morrison, has long been missing. The correspondence includes a photograph of Rowan. Upon his arrival on Summerisle, Howie finds that the locals are a seemingly simple minded lot who provide little information beyond the fact that they know of no Rowan Morrison and do not know the girl in the photo. Mrs. Morrison admits to having a daughter, seven year old Myrtle, but no Rowan. As Howie speaks to more and more people, he begins to believe that Rowan does or did live on the island, but that the locals are hiding their knowledge of her. He also begins to see that the locals all have pagan beliefs, their "religion" which centers on procreation as the source of life. That procreation does not necessarily need to be within marriage, and openly flaunts the act of sex, both in private and in public. These beliefs do not sit well against Howie's strict Christian morals, he who regularly attends church, prays, and accepts communion. Everything that happens on the island seems to be dictated by Lord Summerisle, whose ancestors bought the island generations ago. Howie begins to believe that Rowan was murdered, she a sacrifice by the islanders to their higher power to ensure a bountiful apple crop - the main crop of the island - which did not materialize last season. With May Day approaching, Howie not only tries to find out if Rowan was indeed murdered/sacrificed, which includes trying to locate her body, but if there will be another sacrifice on this important day within the cycle of life.

A soon-to-be-stepmom is snowed in with her fiance's two children at a remote holiday village. Just as relations finally begin to thaw between the trio, strange and frightening events threaten to summon psychological demons from her strict religious childhood.

2019 film by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz

There, but for the grace of God, goes Maud, a reclusive young nurse whose impressionable demeanor causes her to pursue a pious path of Christian devotion after an obscure trauma. Now charged with the hospice care of Amanda, a retired dancer ravaged by cancer, Maud's fervent faith quickly inspires an obsessive conviction that she must save her ward's soul from eternal damnation - whatever the cost. Making her feature-film debut, writer/director Rose Glass cannily lures the audience into this disturbed psyche, steadily setting up her veritable diary of a country nurse for an unnerving and ultimately shocking trajectory. Morfydd Clark (also at the Festival in The Personal History of David Copperfield) portrays the sanctimonious Maud with an intense stoicism that belies a disquieting vulnerability, as Maud desperately vies for absolution and solidarity from her embittered patient (an enthralling Jennifer Ehle, also at the Festival in Beneath the Blue Suburban Skies). Glass tenderly captures this relationship with an empathetic gaze that first assumes an ethereal, dreamlike atmosphere - but it isn't long before Maud's dogmatic candor incites an irreconcilable friction that spirals her mind into a suffocating confluence of creeping doubt and paranoia. As Glass tightens the screws on her misguided martyr, well-placed nods are made to religious horror forerunners like William Friedkin's The Exorcist, further contributing to the film's increasingly dread-filled malaise. And when this insidious fever climatically breaks, the consequences are devastating and terrifying in equal measure.

Blessed--and at the same time cursed--with the precious but fatal gift of beauty, the young peasant, Jeanne, falls in love with the beautiful villager, Jean, in middle-aged France. However, as the village's foul feudal lord exercises the "Droit du Seigneur" or the "Right of the First Night" on the couple's wedding night, a desperate plunge to a world of disturbing hallucinations will eventually lead Jeanne to a damned Faustian bargain with the Prince of Darkness. Thirsting for power and sweet retribution, Jeanne will gradually transform into an omnipotent and destructive vessel of seduction, as her newly acquired powers go hand in hand with the blackest of witchcraft. Is there a limit to Jeanne's hatred?

It's nearing the end of the school year. High school senior Carrie White is a social outcast, largely due to being unwise to the ways of the world based on her upbringing. Her mother, Margaret White, is a religious fanatic, her extreme views primarily targeted against sex, which she believes is a sin. She even believes natural associated processes such as menstruation are a sin, about which she has refused to mention to Carrie. Mrs. White's beliefs were taken to that extreme largely because of her own failed marriage and her husband Ralph long ago having run off with another woman. The only adult authority figure who tries to help Carrie with her life is her phys ed teacher, Miss Collins, who is nonetheless warned not to get too close to go against how Mrs. White chooses to raise Carrie, Mrs. White whose beliefs are well known in the community. An impromptu event that happens among Carrie's phys ed classmates against her leads to her classmates being punished. One of those students, self absorbed Chris Hargensen, vows revenge against Carrie for that punishment, the method of the revenge associated to the phys ed class incident. Another student however, the popular Sue Snell, begins to feel sorry for Carrie. In wanting to help her get out of her shell, Sue asks her boyfriend, the equally popular Tommy Ross, to take Carrie to the senior prom instead of her. This move does not sit well with Mrs. White, who in her extreme view believes Carrie will fall prey to sin. All these competing issues lead to Carrie deciding on an impulse to use a newfound skill to free herself from the figurative chains that have long been placed around her, with tragic consequences.

The outcast teenager Carrie White is bullied by her classmates at high school. Her mother, Margaret White, is a pious and paranoid woman that sees sin everywhere and the need of self-inflicting punishment. When Carrie has her first period, she does not understand what is happening to her and her classmates humiliate her in the changing room. The spiteful Chris Hargensen videotapes Carrie with her cellphone and posts it on the Internet. Their teacher Ms. Desjardin punishes the students, but when Chris challenges her, she is suspended and consequently is banned from the prom. Meanwhile, Carrie discovers that she has telekinesis and learns how to control her ability. Sue Snell, one of the girls that tormented Carrie, feels bad and asks her boyfriend Tommy Ross to invite Carrie to go with him to the prom to make up for what she did to Carrie. But Chris and her boyfriend Billy Nolan plot an evil prank with her friends to get back at Carrie.

Explores a group of siblings who, as children, grew up in what would go on to become the most famous haunted house in the country. Now adults, and forced back together in the face of tragedy, the family must finally confront the ghosts of their past, some of which still lurk in their minds while others may actually be stalking the shadows of Hill House.

The tale of a small, isolated island community whose existing divisions are amplified by the return of a disgraced young man and the arrival of a charismatic priest. When Father Paul's appearance on Crockett Island coincides with unexplained and seemingly miraculous events, a renewed religious fervor takes hold of the community - but do these miracles come at a price?

A visiting actress in Washington, D.C., notices dramatic and dangerous changes in the behavior and physical make-up of her 12-year-old daughter. Meanwhile, a young priest at nearby Georgetown University begins to doubt his faith while dealing with his mother's terminal sickness. And, book-ending the story, a frail, elderly priest recognizes the necessity for a show-down with an old demonic enemy.

Fifteen years after a horrifying experience of abduction and prolonged torture, Lucie embarks on a bloody quest for revenge against her oppressors. Along with her childhood friend, Anna, who also suffered abuse, she quickly descends, without hope, into madness and her own delusions. Anna, left on her own begins to re-experience what Lucie did when she was only twelve years old.

Robert and Katherine Thorn seem to have it all. They are happily married and he is the US Ambassador to Great Britain, but they want nothing more than to have children. When Katharine has a stillborn child, Robert is approached by a priest at the hospital who suggests that they take a healthy newborn whose mother has just died in childbirth. Without telling his wife he agrees. After relocating to London, strange events - and the ominous warnings of a priest - lead him to believe that the child he took from that Italian hospital is evil incarnate.

Desiring to start their family, young Catholic homemaker Rosemary Woodhouse and her struggling-actor husband Guy move into The Bramford: New York City's iconic building that brims with unpleasant stories of obscure dwellers and ghastly occurrences. The young couple is soon befriended by their eccentric next-door neighbors, Roman and Minnie and Castevet; shortly afterward, Rosemary gets pregnant. However, little by little--as the inexperienced mother becomes systematically cut off from her circle of friends--alarming hints of a sinister, well-planned conspiracy start to emerge, enfolding timid Rosemary in a shroud of suspicion and mental agony. Why is everyone so conveniently eager to help? And why is Guy allowing it?

1968 American psychological horror film directed by Roman Polanski

Two Catholic schoolgirls Kat (Kiernan Shipka) and Rose (Lucy Boynton) get left behind at their boarding school over winter break as the other girls leave, where it's rumored that the nuns are satanists. Meanwhile, a disturbed mental patient Joan (Emma Roberts), an escapee, is picked up by a middleage couple (James Remar and Lauren Holly) who drive her on a determined trip to the same school, where the girls must face the supernatural and demonic possession.

New England, 1630: William and Katherine try to lead a devout Christian life, homesteading on the edge of an impassible wilderness, with five children. When their newborn son mysteriously vanishes and their crops fail, the family begins to turn on one another. 'The Witch' is a chilling portrait of a family unraveling within their own sins, leaving them prey for an inconceivable evil.

A depiction of the last twelve hours in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, on the day of his crucifixion in Jerusalem. The story opens in the Garden of Olives where Jesus has gone to pray after the Last Supper. Betrayed by Judas Iscariot, the controversial Jesus--who has performed 'miracles' and has publicly announced that he is 'the Son of God'--is arrested and taken back within the city walls of Jerusalem. There, the leaders of the Pharisees confront him with accusations of blasphemy; subsequently, his trial results with the leaders condemning him to his death. Jesus is brought before Pontius Pilate, the prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, for his sentencing. Pilate listens to the accusations leveled at Jesus by the Pharisees. Realizing that his own decision will cause him to become embroiled in a political conflict, Pilate defers to King Herod in deciding the matter of how to persecute Jesus. However, Herod returns Jesus to Pilate who, in turn, gives the crowd a choice between which prisoner they would rather to see set free--Jesus, or Barrabas. The crowd chooses to have Barrabas set free. Thus, Jesus is handed over to the Roman soldiers and is brutally flagellated. Bloody and unrecognizable, he is brought back before Pilate who, once again, presents him to the thirsty crowd--assuming they will see that Jesus has been punished enough. The crowd, however, is not satisfied. Thus, Pilate washes his hands of the entire dilemma, ordering his men to do as the crowd wishes. Whipped and weakened, Jesus is presented with the cross and is ordered to carry it through the streets of Jerusalem, all the way up to Golgotha. There, more corporal cruelty takes place as Jesus is nailed to the cross--suffering, he hangs there, left to die. Initially, in his dazed suffering, Jesus is alarmed that he has been abandoned by God his father. He then beseeches God. At the moment of his death, nature itself over-turns.

fear god: religious horror/thrillers

movie

tv show

Chaiana Galicia

Films with little to no soundtrack/score and dialogue with powerful, naturalistic themes, scenes, and performances. Watch these carefully! 

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Anime for those looking for something deeper, darker, and worthy of thematic analysis.

fear god: religious horror/thrillers

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