God forgives, evil doesn’t
South Australia punches above its weight when it comes to horror films. There’s been a number of good quality scarefests – Bring Her Back, Talk to Me, Cargo, The Babadook – that the South Australian Film Corporation has been involved in, with more to come.
Diabolic made its premier at the Adelaide Film Festival recently to much hands-over-eyes and pants scared off.
Like all good campfire horror stories, it starts by saying it is based on a true story…
Elise (Elizabeth Cullen) is a young member of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints religion who is cast as the primary member of a baptism ceremony. The elders of the church use her to retroactively baptise dead people, so that they can then enter the kingdom of heaven. The elders are provided with a list of names of people, and Elise is then baptised by being pushed under the water over and over again, as each person’s name is read out. It turns out one of those names isn’t keen on being baptised, and has now found a way back into the mortal world.
We then flash forward to Elise at home with her boyfriend Adam (John Kim). Elise has now left the church, but something is just not quite right. She has nightmares, paints strange pictures and rejects any kind of intimacy with John. She has little memory of her younger years and time in the church. Her therapist recommends that to be able to remember and find closure, she should go back to her hometown to the scene of the baptisms.
Her best friend Mia offers to accompany John and Elise, as she’s a bit new age and has her crystals on hand to help, and we then see them driving off into the wilderness.
We all know how that’s going to work, right? By then, I’m already yelling at the screen, “DON’T GO IN TO THE WILDERNESS!”
As they turn up at the old, secluded cabin and pitch their tents, Hyrum, one of the church elders, turns up. Hyrum is played by Robin Goldsworthy as creepily as possible, while somehow still being somewhat pathetic and innocent.
We eventually see the heartbreaking reason that Elise left the church, and there are several linkages and allegorical connections with suppression.
There are a few twists and turns, and most of the film is more suspenseful than flat out horror until the last part. After seeing this film, it made me go searching for information and baptism by proxy, on behalf of dead people, is something that does occur in real life.
Even though the story is set in middle America, knowing it is Australian I kept looking for anything that looked like home. It did stay consistent, and there was nothing “typically Australian” that stood out to break the continuity of the story.
Written and directed by Daniel J. Phillips and made at Sunjive Studios and Empire Road Pictures, Diabolic showcases South Australian moviemaking, including a talented Australian cast.
While Diabolic may not be gory enough for the pure gorefest fans who want slashing from the first minute, it is definitely one for horror and suspense fans who want a mystery as well as horror.
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