Holy smokes, this is a disturbing and creepy movie about a girl who escapes from an abusive cult. I don’t know exactly why I saw it — knowing it was about a cult — but it received such high praise that I think I was enticed. The film’s definitely effective in a chilling, spooky way. The girl, played by Elizabeth Olsen (yes, she’s the younger sister of the Olsen twins), is haunted by memories and paranoia of the cult (and for good reason!) after she flees and tries to regroup at her sister’s place in the Catskill Mountains. Creepers, you may never look at the Catskills in the same way again. The film is perhaps in the same disturbing realm as the film “Deliverance” crossed with “Helter Skelter” or something.
The cult leader is a freaky bad guy, eerily played by John Hawkes. You might recall Hawkes as the sweet, goofy “Bugsy” in the movie “The Perfect Storm,” but here his character is a scary nutcase who instills fear and delusion over his polygamous sect. The girl, Martha, makes a break for it luckily, but she’s so messed up afterwards, that she’s far from normal. Her sister and brother-in-law have their hands full with her staying at their house. Eventually with the flashbacks, the foreboding of the film’s ending works its way into a crescendo.
The small indie film is quite horrifying in a psychological way. I can’t say that I’d tell someone to see it. Most likely I’d tell them to run. But since that’s too late for me now, I’m sure its vivid portrayals and chilling story will stay in my head for quite sometime.
