This is One of The Scariest Exorcism Films in Years
Matt Konopka
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“A reality is just what we tell each other it is. Sane and insane could easily switch places, if the insane were to become the majority.”
I think about this quote often, said by Julie Carmen in John Carpenter’s mind-melting masterpiece, In the Mouth of Madness. It implies an unsettling truth that none of us wish to consider yet can sense lingering in the shadows of our daily lives. The knowledge that all it would take for what you know today to become false tomorrow is for enough people to believe otherwise. Belief can turn corrupt politicians into god-like saviors. It can persuade masses of people to distrust life-saving vaccines. It can even encourage mobs to commit heinous acts of violence in the name of “good”. All one has to do is believe in an idea so powerfully that nothing else matters.
That blind faith, fueled by religious fanaticism, is what makes director Nick Kozakis’ Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism one of the scariest exorcism films since The Exorcist first compelled audiences to nightmares in 1973.
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Written by Alexander Angliss-Wilson, Godless is based on the real-life “exorcism” of Joan Vollmer that took place in the Australian state of Victoria in 1993. In this telling, we meet Lara (Georgia Eyers), a woman who, according to her psychiatrist, Dr. Walsh (Eliza Matengu), is suffering from a combination of hypermania and paranoid schizophrenia as the result of a traumatic accident. Lara’s husband, Ron (Dan Ewing) doesn’t believe in doctors, though. He’s a man of God, and in his mind, there’s only one explanation for his wife’s condition: Possession. Convinced Lara’s body is inhabited by demons, Ron brings in Daniel (Tim Pocock) to perform an unsanctioned exorcism. But Daniel’s methods for demonic expulsion are much more violent than splashing some holy water on Lara’s head and saying a few prayers.
Despite some ambiguity, it becomes clear that Lara is not possessed. Dr. Walsh’s diagnosis of hypermania and paranoid schizophrenia seems correct. The combination of the two would result in erratic behavior, disorientation, delusions, and hallucinations…all symptoms which Lara displays. She mentions that her problems started around the anniversary of the tragedy that left her first husband and baby dead. The strange static she hears on the radio, the burning figure that haunts her, the sleep-walk dancing—all of it connects to Lara’s memory of the moment just before the accident.
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What Ron and the congregation do by constantly referring to her issues as demonic possession creates a paranoid delusion through forced suggestion. Lara never speaks in tongues, exhibits inhuman strength, or spins her dang head around. She’s merely an ill person reacting to the lies hammered into her mind with an angry personality that springs forth and speaks like the devil Ron assumes her to be. This unfortunately cements his belief as a result. A self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will.
The terror of most exorcism films comes from the perspective of those witnessing a drastic change in their loved ones. The Exorcist was never scary because of pea-soup spitting demons, but because it captures the horror of a mother observing her daughter’s decline into someone she doesn’t recognize. Issues of mental health are almost always at the core of these films, with the possession acting as a metaphor for diseases of the brain. Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism is no different. What is unique about Kozakis’ film is how it switches the viewpoint from the observer to the “possessed”. And what Lara encounters is truly nightmarish.
That nightmare starts with Ron. Selfish. Quick to anger. Fragile-minded. He reflects the misogyny of a Christian upbringing, speaking for Lara whenever the doctor asks her questions or makes her illness about how it affects him. Worst of all, he doesn’t listen to what she really needs. Not when she says her pills are working, and not when she asks him to save her from the congregation. Funny, that he can have so much belief in the words of God, yet virtually none in those of his wife.
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Through their relationship, Kozakis taps into centuries of poor treatment of mental health rooted in misogyny when it comes to women. One of the film’s more chilling moments arises during the end credits when the audience is informed that most unsanctioned exorcisms are performed on women and children. How many, I wonder, have a man like Ron at the center of them, more willing to beat the “demons” out of their wives and kids than admit they are part of the problem?
No one should ever have to face the terror of mental health issues by themselves. Ron might as well have left Lara alone on the battlefield. A devout Christian in a small town, he shares in the conspiracy theories against medical practices that plague his community, reminiscent of the anti-vax movement that continues to put all of us at risk. His disbelief in Lara’s condition strikes at the fundamental problem with groups that would sooner claim the work of the Devil than accept a medical diagnosis.
Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism opens with a display of the horror that evolves from that kind of thinking, introducing Ron as he witnesses an “exorcism” at a church while others scream, cry, and pray. The gut-wrenching display of people shouting at a mentally ill woman as she spasms on the floor initiates a bubbling dread that builds through the entire film, asking the question, when someone believes so deeply in God and the Devil over science, how do you convince them otherwise when it matters?
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You can’t. And it’s that impossibility to penetrate the belief system that is so frightening.
Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism molds fear-based faith into 90 minutes of fanatic terror led by Daniel as he goes full Mrs. Carmody from The Mist. He believes (or at least claims to believe) that he is an instrument of God’s will. “I’m the only man capable and willing to save your wife,” he says to Ron. History is littered with demagogues who claim they are the one true savior of a civilization (something a certain four-time indicted ex-president is fond of saying). These so-called “leaders” take advantage of the faithful, convincing desperate people like Ron that they are their only hope. This is when unquestioning faith turns dangerous by allowing false prophets to become the gods they claim to be. “Do not look away from the face of God,” says Daniel to a man thought to be possessed early on. A manipulative effort to make him believe Daniel is God.
By convincing Ron that he is indeed God’s voice, Daniel grants himself free reign to do whatever he wishes. Ron and the others do nothing but watch while he brutally abuses Lara. I shudder to think of her screaming “Please, why won’t anyone help me?” upon deaf ears. No, Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism isn’t scary by traditional standards. It isn’t loaded with jump scares. Lara doesn’t crabwalk through the house. The terror here comes from the inability to pierce through the blind mob mentality of religious fanaticism.
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Nothing Lara says, nothing she does, can convince the congregation that she isn’t possessed. Even after witnessing his wife murdered by Daniel, Ron still believes him when he says she will rise again, as do hundreds of others. And when she doesn’t? Well, she was just happier with God, according to them. Hell may not be real, but groups like this all over the world that justify any and all action—even murder—as God’s plan, are.
Kozakis should be applauded for delivering one of the few exorcism films that, rather than root itself in various tropes and concepts of good vs. evil, confront the long, dark history of the practice that has harmed far more than it has helped. But the film is only a microcosm of a larger issue. The message within Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism urges viewers to not be complacent during a time when we’re seeing persecution of various communities led by those that prey on blind faith or quote the bible as justification for their cruelty. To stand by and watch this demonization of others is to be complicit. It makes us no better than Daniel, Ron, or the congregation. When we become possessed by our beliefs and lose compassion for each other, we are the demons. And what’s scarier than that?
Categorized:Editorials
