This is not a fun film. It is nasty throughout. The production value is very high, it looks and sounds great. Letting it down is the concept, the bad writing and the boring arrogant directing. There was one shot where the camera spins around that must have been done on a technocrane which shows that they spent lots of money on it but it really takes away from the scene, they actually made that moment worse by using a distracting camera move purely for the sake of it. It really bothered me, if you use these cool bits of equipment then have a reason. Anyway the acting and casting are excellent. The genre is hugely inconsistent, it's mostly a thriller but sometimes it veers heavily into either horror, torture porn and supernatural. The supernatural elements are never addressed or resolved, in a frustratingly similar way that May (2002) dealt with these elements. The ending would have been good if the build up had led to it but it didn't. I also had a hard time believing that anyone would stay on the island and accept it as a way of life, especially if that had come from somewhere rather than being born into that life. They are complicit in the torture, unfazed, almost enjoying it. The graphic torture porn scenes didn't add anything to the film. They spend a long time setting up some characters and stories but sometimes they introduce a character only to kill them off in the same scene without any real engagement. Hugely disappointing waste of budget and talented cast and crew.
Review of Apostle
