By Chris Alexander
There’s something about the American western that bleeds
so well past the margins of the horror film. It’s the elemental nature of the
former genre, the idea of lawlessness, of the struggle against the elements, of
being naked and exposed and desperate in an unformed world where life has
little meaning and the concept of a civilized society is barely kept upright by
the spine of religion. The Italians – Leone, Corbucci et al – first exploited the Gothic, Grand Guignol
nature of the western throughout the 1960s and later, Chilean surrealist
Alejandro Jodorowsky took it further with the metaphysical eastern/western El
Topo and Sam Peckinpah dragged it home again with his string of squib-happy,
brutal oaters. Then, in the waning days of the 1970s, the western died,
replaced by harder horror films and contemporary action films, with young
people less interested in the brutality of the wild frontier, with only a few
spits and spurts (Unforgiven, HBO’s Deadwood) springing to life on occasion.
But the western is back where it belongs now, hiding on
the dark, morally dodgy fringes,
violent, sexual and unsparing. Indie cinema has recognized the appeal of
setting darker dramas in these primal American landscapes and the indie western
is the new horror movie, full stop. Witness the recent masterpiece Bone
Tomahawk and scrappier stuff like Red on Yella, Kill a Fella. Hell, even HBO
has gone to the well again, perverting the Western with their ultra-violent,
hyper-sexual revisit of Michael
Crichton’s Westworld.
And now, we have Dutch filmmaker Martin (Winter in
Wartime) Koolhoven’s Brimstone, an arthouse horror morality tale western that
blends the European flavor of the Spaghetti Western with a distinctly Dutch
dark wit and the sort of feminine-centric psyche-horror that Danish auteur Lars
von Trier trades in. And there’s fluid. Plenty of spurting, seeping fluid, most
of it unleashed by eruptions of unflinchingly hideous violence.
This is dark stuff, readers.
But beneath its cracked baby skulls, rape, murders,
outhouse hangings etc. there’s a point to Brimstone. It’s not a wallow in
savagery, though it is one of the most savage films I’ve seen in some time.
Instead it uses the idea of religion run rampant and exploited by evil to paint
a portrait of pain, suffering, debasement and human vulgarity. And yet, at its
core, it’s really about strength and courage during times of impossible
atrocity. It’s like a satanic version of The Passion of the Christ by way of
von Trier’s Breaking the Waves and Antonia Bird’s Ravenous.
And whatever else Brimstone is – and it is many things –
it’s also the greatest horror film this critic has seen in a very, very long
time.
As in the aforementioned horror western Ravenous, Guy
Pearce stars in Brimstone albeit in a radically different role. Here, he’s a
steroidal, possibly supernatural riff on Robert Mitchum’s Harry Powell in Night
of the Hunter by way of Vincent Price’s Matthew Hopkins in Witchfinder
General; a mad, sadistic and
hypocritical sadist who uses his position to manipulate and pervert the natural
world and redefine its rules to suit his nature. Pearce plays the role with an
Abe Lincoln beard and vaguely Dutch accent and he’s a fearsome, ferocious and
absolutely horrifying presence. As an aside, one must marvel at just how fantastic
an actor he truly is, how he can easily play any kind of character, monstrous
or meek and make it believable. More people need to discuss his genius…
Pearce’s reverend spends most of Brimstone‘s running time
pursuing and attempting to decimate Dakota Fanning’s mute frontier woman Liz,
with whom he shares a diabolical past. What that past is reveals itself in a
serpentine narrative that starts in the middle, goes backwards, stops and then
proceeds forwards again. Koolhoven deftly makes this episodic structure work.
It’s not a gimmick; it’s an essential component of the film’s power to
disorient.
To reveal too much of the story would de-fang the film’s
primal power but just be aware that Brimstone is the strongest of tonics and
will likely offend and upset many. Some have accused it as being misogynistic
but it’s far from it. It’s bold in that it is absolutely PRO female and
portrays the power of women in the face of the tyranny of men, especially
during periods where they were far less protected and respected. Fanning – who
acts with her trembling body and haunted eyes in an incredible performance – is
a creature whose fate in Hell is seemingly sealed and who has to fight and lose
everything in order to clean the slate and save herself. What she endures is
unthinkable and hard to endure; for her character and for us, the audience.
Beautifully photographed and armed with a pulsating,
emotional score by Junkie XL, Brimstone isn’t just a western, it’s an essential
contemporary religio-horror movie and Pearce’s Devil-preacher is something
ripped from your worst nightmare.
This is a work of the blackest and yet most visionary
cinematic art.
Find me a better horror movie this year. I dare you.
Brimstone hits theaters and On Demand on March 10th from Momentum
Pictures.
Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFk32lA8eqs
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