BELIEVER (2024) - Mark Reviews Movies

Believer, Brainstorm Media

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 12, 2024

Believer might have worked as a self-contained thriller about a young woman who may or may not be under the influence of a cult leader. That's the basic premise of writer/director Sheldon Wilson's movie, which puts the woman in question in a remote house with her family. Strange and bad things start to happen.

It's a fine setup, albeit a completely counterproductive one, because only two conclusions are possible from it. Either Kate (Ella Ballentine) is responsible for what Wilson shows us is going on in the house, or she's not. If the first is the case, there's little tension to be mined here, because the filmmaker puts everything right there in front of us with no questions left to ask and not much surprise as things unfold. If Kate isn't the responsible part, though, that just leaves too many questions about the identity of the perpetrator and the logistics of how any of this stuff is happening without anyone noticing.

Without spoiling what really can't be spoiled in a movie that eventually puts forth so many last-act twists that the epilogue feels as if a new story is going to start at least twice, Wilson's tale is a mystery. Something is going on inside and around the house, and someone is to blame for those events. Kate may look like the most obvious suspect, but even she isn't of sound-enough mind to know if she has done anything or just imagined it.

It's complicated, to say the least, or, to put it more accurately, convoluted beyond credulity. We first meet Kate writing a book about pernicious serial killer named Marshall Grayson (Kris Holden-Ried), who has been convicted of and is about to sentenced for 53 murders. That's a high number, but it's just the start of Grayson's malevolence. He's also suspected of more murders in the United Kingdom and Australia, and as unlikely as it seems with this history, the only reason for Grayson's arrest is that he essentially allowed himself to be caught.

Grayson, apparently, never directly killed but had a group of followers who killed for him—each one dying by suicide immediately after each murder. The man is convincing, obviously, and he believes he has a supernatural power and a world-saving purpose. A vision informed him that the world is going to end, and the only way to stop it is by killing specific people.

The whole narrative is mostly removed from this idea for reasons that seem practical at first, since it's more about the question of the man's possible influence on Kate specifically. Eventually, those reasons reveal themselves to be necessary by the end, because digging into Grayson beliefs as a matter of reality just raises too many complications and questions and head-slapping contradictions. As this movie expands its scope, it becomes increasingly far-fetched in both its little and big details.

Before that, it's not much better, though. At the killer's sentencing hearing, Kate is attacked by Grayson, who whispers something into her ear before he's shot and killed by Detective Brener (Martin Roach), the cop who finally arrested him without much trouble. Upon awakening in a hospital, Kate can't remember the attack or what Grayson said to her, and she's lucky, if only because Wilson ensures we don't forget the scene by having it play out at least a half dozen times over the course of the story. Each time, a little more information is revealed, but honestly, those revelations mean absolutely nothing since the filmmaker withholds the only piece that matters until the final minutes of the movie.

Until then, Kate moves in with her older sister Michelle (Lauren Lee Smith), brother-in-law David (Peter Mooney), and niece Ella (Ilan O'Driscoll). The family dog barks at her, because dogs always know best in these movies and regularly pay the price because most of the humans aren't as smart, and soon enough, we know—and keep being told over and over that Kate or someone else—seen or unseen—in the house is up to no good.

The narrative goes around in circles, as Kate has visions and behaves erratically. David suggests she needs medical and/or psychiatric help (Ballentine's performance comes across as if some caffeine would help), but like the dog, he's ignored. The sisters have a tragic history, and Michelle doesn't want to lose her sister again. It's most telling of Wilson's treatment of these characters that the one bit of back story for any of them turns out to be part of the game he finally plays in the third act.

It's best to leave any of that unspoken. That's not to preserve the secrets of Believer. It's simply because they're too elaborately contrived for anyone—except Wilson, apparently—to believe they make a lick of sense.

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