If you drill down through the horror movie landscape to the sub-sub-genren of British folk horror, you'll find a common theme: Most British folk horror movies have a memorable set piece two thirds of the way through, usually involving a gruesome sacrifice or other violent death. From The Wicker Man and Witchfinder General to The Devils, these are the moments that get imprinted in your brain. In Apostle, Gareth Evans’ newest Netflix film, it is the so-called “Heathen Stand” that will leave audiences everywhere squirming. Naturally, we had to chat with Evans when given the chance after the movie's world premiere at Fantastic Fest.
Evans did extensive research when it came to capital punishment and torture, all to inflict excruciating scenes of visceral horror on his characters. “It all came from research into medieval methods for capital punishment," he said. "To be perfectly honest, there’s a lot of nastier things out there than what we came up with. It was unbearable to read up on.”
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Now Playing: 10 Terrifying Horror Movies On Netflix You Need To Watch Now
The “Heathen Stand” is simplistic in design, but horrifying in execution. It's a simple table with crank handles for both arms and legs, and a drill on one end. “It was born out of an idea of something that could tie in to a search for purity, and purifying the sinners," Evans said. "So the design had to make sense, that the cult would have it. It couldn’t feel too elaborate. It is something that should look ramshackle, like made off slabs of wood.”
“It also wanted it to fit this idea of the cult being sort of pilgrims, without prefabricated houses or villages,” the director continued. “I thought, 'What would they have built all these things from? Wood.' They would have cut down some trees, but they would have also used wood from the boats they travelled on to build these houses, and that torture device. The buildings and the Stand have a ramshackle feel to them, because they were made by a community of different people with different skills coming together to do their best.”
Apostle is perhaps Evans’ most violent and gnarliest film to date, and he knows not everyone will be on board. “It is definitely a violent film. I definitely feel like it’s not going to be for everyone. I can already sense that it’s going to be more divisive than anything I’ve done in the past,” he said. Yet for all the brutal torture and action, Evans was more restrained making Apostle than he was on the Raid films.
“I don’t want to just throw violence at the screen all the time--that’s not my intent or interest," he said. "So when it came to something like the ‘Heathen Stand’, I’ll show you how that machine works. I’ll show you what each turn of each little crank will do, and I’ll get you to the point where you know exactly what’s about to happen, but at the moment it happens I’m going to cut away to somebody else’s reaction. Or I’m going to stay away from the detail on it, and it will be all in your head. So as long as I’m giving you enough of a glimpse at something, you feel like you are seeing something much stronger. That sequence is meant to hurt and upset. While editing, whenever I showed the ‘Heathen Stand’ sequence to someone, I felt uncomfortable.”
Apostle joins a long history of horror films dealing with cults and their believers turning to violence. Gareth Evans has an idea as to why audiences are still fascinated by cults. “I think it’s because it is the feat of getting into an environment that you’re not sure you can escape from," he said. "It’s kind of the same as going to the house in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You don’t know what is going to happen, but you know from the get-go that they’re the bad guys. When Thomas (Dan Stevens) goes into that cult, he doesn’t know who he can or can’t trust, and it’s that cat and mouse game which keeps the tension going. It’s just a situation like that, in that environment that’s got a natural built tension. The benefit of us doing it on an island is that he has no escape route--it created an extra dimension of feeling trapped.“
But there’s a lot more than meets the eye in the cult that’s at the center of Apostle. Evans turns the tables on us and goes into a supernatural plot, something he’s glad Netflix has kept hidden in all the movie's trailers and marketing so far.
Apostle explores the idea of man abusing religion for political and personal gain. Evans researched cults and political ideologies from the early 20th century, especially proto-communist systems. “When you look at what they try to do, the cult seems to be similar to what would become communism--this idea of a utopia where everyone is equal, even if the people at the top have a way better life," the director said. "That is a bit more resonant now, but it’s been around for centuries--the idea of people abusing and contorting faith in order to further political ideas.”
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Yet this is no mere talk of ideology and faith, for the inhabitants of the island worship an actual goddess. It's eventually revealed that the "Her" to which they refer is a real and very bloodthirsty nature deity who controls the crops and other plants on the island.
Evans said he always wanted to tell a story about man discovering God. “The idea at the center of the film is a question of what if man finds out God is real, and then enslaves it?" he said.
To create that God, Evans went back to the basic design element that permeates Apostle, from the houses built out of the ships the cultists arrived in, to the Heathen Stand itself: wood. “I wanted to create a very old creature that is bound to the Earth and to the island," he said. "The answer came simply in taking the wooden and ramshackle designs of the village and making them older for ‘Her’, with a sort of tree coming out of her.”
Like the movie's torture scenes, the result is haunting. Apostle comes out on Netflix on October 12--read our full review to find out what we thought.
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