Review: Thine Ears Shall Bleed – “an impressive debut.”

Directed by Ben Bigelow
Starring Andrew Hovelson, Hannah Cabell, Lea Zawada, Duke Huston, Lucas Near-Verbrugghe

This debut by director and writer Bigelow follows a family headed by the preacher Ezekiel Thatcher, heading through the vast American landscape in the mid 1800s in a covered wagon He and his family, wife Sarah (Hannah Cabel), daughter Abigail (Lea Zawada) and their blind son Luke (Duke Huston) are travelling across country to pick up, of all things, a pipe organ, to take back to Ezekiel’s church (he’s convinced this addition will bring in more worshippers to his church). As the deeply religious family travel slowly across the forested, hilly landscape, the road comes to a y-shaped fork, which isn’t on Ezekiel’s map; after some debate they decide since Jesus sits at God’s right hand, they will choose the right fork.

Unfortunately, after travelling this path between the trees for some time, they find the road simply peters out. Deciding it is too late to turn back to the fork now, they prepare to make camp there for the evening, planning to backtrack in the morning. Of course, as any self-respecting horror fan will likely suspect, when you take a road that isn’t marked on the map, into some remote, rural place, you can be fairly sure something is going to happen, and it does.

It starts slowly – the family hear strange noises in the night, which they try to shrug off as part of the natural world, but you just know whatever made those sounds is not natural. In the morning they find that both of their horses have somehow gotten loose from their ropes. Ezekiel tracks their hoof-prints through the forest until they just vanish by a swampy pond, with no sign of the animals. Stuck now in the wilderness with limited supplies, the mother, Sarah is concerned, but Ezekiel adopts the “the Lord will provide” approach, seemingly unconcerned.

When he hears the booming noise once more, he tracks it to a large canyon, the sound so loud it makes his ears bleed. He becomes increasingly obsessed with the sounds, believing it is a message from God, that he must transcribe into his journal and pass on, as if he is a prophet of old. Ezekiel is encouraged in this by young Luke, who likens the echoing, booming, roaring sound to the voices of angels from on high.

When Luke wakes one morning to discover his sight has been miraculously restored to him, he and Ezekiel take this as a further sign that this is a blessed place and they have been chosen, while Abigail and Sarah, although delighted at Luke’s miracle of sight, are far more sceptical – what if this isn’t God speaking to Ezekiel? What if it is something else? Finding a seemingly lost traveller (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe’s Woodrow) just adds more uncertainty to the mix – is he what he seems? Why couldn’t he leave this place and are they also stuck?

While far from perfect, I found Bigelow’s debut to be a very atmospheric chiller, with knowing nods both to the religious horror and to the folk horror genres (and I must confess to a particular soft spot for folk horror). Like Brit folk horror To Fire You Come At Last, this film knows it doesn’t have a lot of resources in terms of budget or effects, but it deploys atmosphere very well to cover this, and like that other film, it also uses a small cast, with remote location and night sequences to help suggest things rather than show outright, aided hugely by the score and the excellent soundscape.

The darkness of the forest night, with those noises, is wonderfully creepy, then the sudden flare of light from a burning torch, mysteriously planted right outside their wagon at night, casting shadows over the canvas of the wagon (was that a figure moving outside or not?), building that creepy atmosphere, as Ezekiel becomes more and more religiously deranged.

While not without its flaws, I thought this was an impressive debut, and I found the clever use of sound and darkness to slowly build an increasing sense of unease and an atmosphere that somehow, even surrounded by the nature of the great outdoors, there is something simply wrong, something unnatural about this place. A good one to watch late at night, with most of the lights out.

Thine Ears Shall Bleed will be available from Miracle Media on digital platforms from July 15th.