Are our own personal demons forces that can be exorcised? This is what is pondered at the core of Mickey Reece’s Agnes, a film that initially asserts itself as a Catholic horror with an exorcism as its centre, but later reconfigures itself to explore a secular trauma that one woman attempts to wrestle out of herself.

After the titular Sister Agnes (Hayley McFarland) erupts into a fit of “vile blasphemy” one evening at a dinner shared by a small group of nuns, a parish assigns a past-his-prime priest, along with a young priest-to-be, to investigate the sisters and their turmoil. They confront a young woman exhibiting most of the usual signs of possession—venomous profanities, the sounds of snarling beasts, violent tendencies—and quickly find themselves in over their heads. Only in the lone presence of her friend, Sister Mary (Molly C. Quinn), does Agnes ever seem to achieve lucidity and defy her condition.

Revealing any more of the film’s plot beyond this point would be working to undo the power of Reece’s story, but know that Agnes is a film that shape shifts beyond what is usually conjured to mind when you picture the tired tropes of an exorcism flick. Reece yanks at the strings behind Agnes with devilish glee, and builds upon the chops he earned in his previous two horrors to make Agnes his most spellbinding and formally refined picture yet. Everything in Agnes is an improvement for the filmmaker, whether it is his control over his actors, his snappy editing, or his managing to make this, his twenty seventh feature, seem far more evolved beyond the average arthouse indie. When the film’s score swaps out chamber-style strings for bombastic electronic percussion, you can’t help but take notice and feel you’ve stumbled into something special.

While Reece’s contorting script does mean some elements are introduced for what seem like quizzical reasons (the character of the leathery celebrity priest, for example), no elements work to dissuade your sense of intrigue. Quinn as Mary also works to keep you baited and hooked, and she gives a chillingly refined performance that makes it feel as if her character is teetering on the edge of a black oblivion. Reece’s film follows her as she navigates a world in which her friend coming under alleged demonic control may be but one chapter before many others. These chapters will test her perceptions of who is in control, and make her question whether the voices that force our hands are external, or whether they come from within.

While Paul Verhoeven's Cannes-premiering Benedetta may have already thrown its cornette into the ring as the nun film to watch for this year, Agnes is sure to shake and delight any who happen upon it in the indie circuit. The film is available to stream on-demand until August 25th for ticketholders to Fantasia’s digital library.

CINEMATOGRAPHER

Samuel Calvin

SOUND DESIGNER

Rob Derrick

COMPOSER

Nicholas Poss

CONTACT

Divide & Conquer

DIRECTOR

Mickey Reece

WRITER

Mickey Reece, John Selvidge

CAST

Chris Browning, Mary Buss, Sean Gunn, Ben Hall, Zandy Hartig, Jake Horowitz, Hayley McFarland, Molly C. Quinn, Chris Sullivan, Rachel True

PRODUCER

Jensine Carr, Elan Gale, Molly Quinn, Jacob Snovel, Matthew Welty