by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $12.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Elizabeth Cullen, John Kim, Terence Crawford, Luca Asta Sardelis, Mia Challis, Mark Saturno
Intro:
… well shot, has a great lead and genuinely creepy moments.
Broadly speaking, the job of the humble horror movie is to make things seem scary. Like, hockey masks aren’t objectively fright-inducing but thanks to the Friday the 13th series, they are forever associated with lumbering serial killer Jason Voorhees. Same goes for clowns (It, Terrifier), kids’ toys (Child’s Play, Annabelle) and even children (Children of the Corn, Orphan). Basically, genre flicks want to make the mundane spooky. Diabolic, the latest film from Aussie director Daniel J. Phillips, attempts to do the seemingly impossible: make Mormons scary!
Diabolic is the story of a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints [FLDS], Elisa (Elizabeth Cullen), who suffers from some undefined trauma from her time in the church. Along with her boyfriend, Adam (John Kim) and friend, Gwen (Mia Challis), Elisa decides to try some exposure therapy, taking powerful hallucinogens and having a “healing ceremony” at the site of her former troubles. Apparently, no one thinks that this is literally the worst idea imaginable and, naturally, something dark is unleashed from Elisa’s soul and things begin to take a turn for the supernatural and deadly.
Shot in South Australia but set in Utah (with Aussie actors bunging on ‘Murican accents), Diabolic has a lot going for it. It’s gorgeous for a start, beautifully shot and looking far more exxy than its modest budget. It’s got a terrific lead actress in Elizabeth Cullen, who we’d be very surprised if we didn’t see more of soon. And there are some decent fright scenes, certainly enough to put together a very flash-looking trailer.
The problem with Diabolic is one of pacing. The script, penned by Mike Harding, Ticia Madsen and Phillips himself, has some real structural issues and never finds a consistent rhythm. This leaves the film lacking in momentum and the whole experience is very stop-start, with some effective moments followed swiftly by underwhelming ones. The best sequences are Elisa’s flashbacks to her past with the FLDS, showcasing a lifestyle so grim and repressive that even Trey Parker and Matt Stone would have trouble lampooning it in musical form. It’s also where Diabolic is at its most original. When the full-on horror stuff arrives, it feels well-executed but filled with overly familiar riffs on material you’ve seen before in everything from The Exorcist to The Evil Dead and even a little Night of the Demons.
There’s also a tonal disconnect here, with Diabolic unsure if it wants to be an A24 elevated horror flick or a standard issue demon/witch yarn. Either would be fine, but because it’s neither, the whole exercise comes off as either a little too po-faced or slow-paced.
It’s a pity, too, because some patchy acting and dodgy accents aside, there’s a lot to like about Diabolic. It’s well shot, has a great lead and genuinely creepy moments. The revelations about the FLDS are fascinating (look up “baptism for the dead”, it’s wild) and there are flashes of brilliance that are sadly all too infrequent.
