louisiana movies: THE SUDBURY DEVIL (2023)

The Sudbury Devil 
(2023, Directed by Andrew Rakich​)

New Orleans local Andrew Rakich's debut feature premiered in 2023. Melding folk and historical horror, it’s an evocatively harsh, unfiltered experience that sits with you like a jolting mug of rotgut wine. I mean this as a compliment. There’s a cinematic earthiness to this story, marinated as it is in a steaming rural mire that almost wafts off the screen, stewing viewers in the ongoing discomfort. 

A fully-realised feature film (and a convincing period drama at that) from New Orleans talent is always an exciting feat, the production levels and practical effects here even more impressive once you consider the challenges of creating a film that looks this good on a $25k budget. The production admirably operated as a cooperative project, cast and crew working for profit share rather than upfront pay. Rakich cannily harnesses any aesthetic roughness, folding it into a vivid fever dream. 

Set in 1678 Massachusetts, it’s two years after King Philip's War left the colonies soaked in trauma and indigenous blood. The story follows Puritan witch hunters Fletcher (Benton Guinness) and Cutting (Josh Popa), who arrive to investigate the woods outside the village of Sudbury. Together with their guide, Goodenow (Matthew van Gessel), they soon encounter chaotic spiritual forces that are hostile to their pious, righteous certainty.

Directorial references might include Robert Eggers, Ben Wheatley or even Peter Strickland. Rakich dives into a visceral experience, grabbing you by the collar and rubbing your face in the rotting undergrowth. The period detail is thorough, and even the Early Modern English vernacular is rendered with linguistic integrity.

I especially admired the cinematography when it adhered to a distancing, objective discipline; when it’s at its most Protestant, if you will. Some of the still shots of interiors and the woods put me in mind of the uneasy aesthetic calm of Paul Shrader’s masterful First Reformed. Even the ever-looming 4:3 aspect ratio seems fittingly Calvinistic.

The reassurance of simple religious tradition is thrown into disarray by mysterious, ethereal landowner’s wife Patience Gavett (Linnea Gregg), and the primordial presence of former slave Flora (Kendra Unique). These women channel magical powers and a feral sexuality that torments the investigators even as it hints at a more sinister, larger evil. 

Rakich puts up the ritualistic violence of devil worship against the bloody genocide of so-called Christian colonizing and asks…are they so morally different, actually? Empires are built on curses, and we shouldn't show surprise at the devils that are summoned. (PO)

WATCH The Sudbury Devil online
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