Greenwich Entertainment
There’s always a market for the ‘religious extremist’ story, because who doesn’t like looking down on others for their ‘crazy’ beliefs? My father used to joke that anyone more religious than us was crazy, but anyone less was an apostate. So there’s something about the way we view and talk about religion that creates space for the ‘Judge not lest ye be judged’ morality tale.
Them That Follow calls itself a thriller, coming from the director/writer pair of Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage in their film debut. As a new film, it has its strengths but also its weaknesses. In the movie we follow a small community in the middle of the Appalachian mountains, a group of snake handling religious extremists, based on the real life groups that follow a very particular interpretation of an obscure passage in the Bible. Most of these groups have been outlawed, as they use poisonous snakes as a part of their rituals and, of course, people can die.
The one exception is West Virginia, where any expression of religion is legal (to simplify things), but the movie doesn’t really need to be anywhere but ‘away from modern society.’ The main character is Mara (Alice Englert), the daughter of local preacher and pastor Lemuel Childs (Walton Goggins, in classic style) who is just now coming up on her marriageable age. Mara is connected with her friend Dilly (Kaitlyn Dever of Booksmart) but also local boy Augie (Thomas Mann).
Mara is linked with pious boy Garrett (Lewis Pullman), who pursues her for his wife. Augie’s mother Hope Slaughter (Olivia Colman with a pitch perfect Southern twang) is also a local busybody and key part of any wedding preparations. Soon enough we see the problem — after a lot of long looks and musical sad cues, we realize that Mara is pregnant with Augie’s child, although she keeps it secret by necessity. After all, she could burn in Hell for it.
Eventually things proceed and grow slowly in intensity, leading to a few scenes with the snakes that are legitimately tense and disturbing. Naturally, the movie isn’t a particularly happy one. The film takes its time, with minimal dialogue and a lot of room for ambience. All of the principal actors are good here, but only Augie and Mara’s characters really have any room for something interesting.
Walton Goggins plays up his role, but it feels like the sort of thing he could do in his sleep. Same for Olivia Colman, who basically gets one scene with any teeth in it. It’s hard to connect really with these characters, because they are such an odd, strange community. The problem I had ultimately is that the payoffs didn’t feel like they really hit with the setups.
It’s far from a bad film, just not something that particularly stands out, at least not to me. There’s some talent here in this film debut, although I’d say it was more in the visual style and scenes of tenseness — less in the writing and character choices. The two director/writers are basically only known for a short film before this, but there’s something of potential here too. I think there’s the potential for a more affecting and intriguing film, one that’s really saying something instead of repeating the old classic ‘extremism is bad’ theme. Perhaps they’ll make that one next time.
Them That Follow has a run time of 1 hour 38 minute and is rated R for some disturbing violence.
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