Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Georgia Eyers, Dan Ewing, Tim Pocock, Rosie Traynor, Eliza Matengu, John Wood
Intro:
… a thoughtful, dark and bleak story about mental illness and faith and the sharp, merciless angles at which those two forces meet. It’s claustrophobic and grim and not exactly a good time, but for fans of more cerebral horror and true crime, Godless may seem like a minor miracle.
The thing about exorcism movies is that they’re fun. Even William Friedkin’s iconic 1973 genre definer The Exorcist has a certain joy to it, a simple story of good versus evil where the stakes couldn’t be higher. Sure, the idea that an old bloke in a frock bellowing Bible passages is an effective counterattack to pure evil is absurd, but it’s a friendly, quasi-wholesome variety of absurdity and one that’s hard not to appreciate.
The thing about real life exorcisms, particularly those unsanctioned by the church, is that they’re not fun. Not at all. In fact, they mainly involve zealots abusing mentally ill people, usually women or children, and in some cases end in tragic death. Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism is the story of a real-life exorcism, based on a case from Melbourne in 1993, and while it’s pretty damn effective, it’s also anything but fun.
Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism is the story of married couple Lara (Georgia Eyers) and Ron (Dan Ewing), who find themselves at a bit of a crossroads. See, Lara seems to be going through something – having night terrors, saying strange things, dancing naked in the night – and despite their attempts to use modern medicine to fix the problem, the results have not been encouraging. Ron is a man of faith and decides to call upon his fundamentalist church brethren and sistren to help him out. As Lara’s condition continues to deteriorate, Ron is encouraged to call upon the services of DIY exorcist, Daniel (Tim Pocock). Needless to say, the events that follow aren’t what anyone is expecting.
Godless is a fantastic concept for a movie, a grounded, realistic look at what happens in a real life exorcism, far from the Hollywood gloss and slick special effects that have come to typify the genre. Using a tragic true story as a premise, really brings home how desperate and awful a lot of these incidents are, and the direction from Nick Kozakis and performances by Eyers and Ewing are topnotch. Slightly less successful is the script, which announces its intentions far too early and then pretty much repeats itself for the duration. For a story like this to really work, we need to have more of an insight into the inner workings of the characters, particularly Lara, and the screenplay as written feels like a draft or two away from really nailing that aspect.
That said, it’s nice to see a low budget Aussie film trying something a little different with a genre that has so oversaturated the market (we get the beginning of yet another Exorcist trilogy starting next month, just FYI). This is a thoughtful, dark and bleak story about mental illness and faith and the sharp, merciless angles at which those two forces meet. It’s claustrophobic and grim and not exactly a good time, but for fans of more cerebral horror and true crime, Godless may seem like a minor miracle.
