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United Kingdom, United States · 2018
2h 10m
Director Gareth Evans
Starring Dan Stevens, Michael Sheen, Lucy Boynton, Mark Lewis Jones
Genre Drama, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
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London, 1905. Prodigal son Thomas Richardson has returned home, only to learn that his sister is being held for ransom by a religious cult. Desperate to rescue her at any cost, Thomas travels to the remote island where the cult lives and uncovers a secret more sinister than he could have imagined.
Apostle is a solid mystery-thriller, but save for predictably engaging performances from Stevens and Sheen, it’s largely unremarkable. Though it’s interesting to see Evans tackle something a little more conventional, this feels almost too conventional for the man who gave us The Raid and its sequel.
The Guardian by Charles Bramesco
Polarizing yet undeniably fascinating, the bait-and-switch horror film lures its viewer into a false sense of terrified security before pouncing in an anything-goes frenzy, and Evans’s latest is a prime specimen.
Entertainment Weekly by Chris Nashawaty
Netflix feels like a proper home for a film this idiosyncratic. After all, you’ll know within 30 minutes stumbling onto it whether you want to keep following its unsettling descent into blood-soaked madness or pick up your remote and head over to the relatively sunnier and safer comforts of "Broadchurch."
By the time Apostle arrives at its big reveal, the movie has veered off on so many tangled pathways that the ending can’t resolve them all. Instead, it provides a single, ethereal image that hints at the more imaginative possibilities lurking somewhere inside this bloody mess.
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
The Grand Guignol factor climbs throughout the final third, but while climactic battles are violent, they never really thrill.
The film introduces interesting themes as though they’ll build to something, only to let them spill out like so much viscera from an especially nasty wound.
We Got This Covered by Matt Donato
Gareth Evans’ Apostle is The Wicker Man, Safe Haven and Silent Hill thrown into a boil that bubbles over during a ruthless third act that certainly delivers if you have the patience.
The Film Stage by Mike Mazzanti
Evans lets his freak flag billow gloriously in the cinematic wind; leaning into the perverse nature of his work, he fixates on tension and dread to craft a compelling journey enveloped in lunacy.
IGN by Rafael Motamayor Aguiton
With Apostle, Gareth Evans has proven he can not only master action films with stunning choreography, but he can also deliver a bone-chilling folk horror tale rich in mythology and shocking in violence. Apostle owes a lot to classic folk horror films, but Evans manages to make his film feel fresh and gripping enough to satisfy even the most blood-thirsty horror fan.
It seems to attempt both schlocky fun gore and disturbingly realistic gore, which feels like an uneasy mix. Whatever line there is between fun, cathartic gore and enervating, off-putting, borderline mean-spirited gore, Apostle crosses it, at least for me. Not exactly a fun time by the end, and it was hard to divine a higher purpose for it (something about religion, I guess?). Hell of a premise, cast, and setting though. And points for boldness.
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