I Watch Films: The Believers

 

The Believers

Cal’s wife is electrocuted in a freak accident; in an effort to make a clean start he and his son Chris move to New York, where his friend Marty is a lawyer (and amateur magician). He arranges Cal a job as a police psychologist, and a house to rent from Jessica, a widow who lives across the road, and also a housekeeper and nanny, Carmen.

One of the police finds the body of a child, they think it’s part of a series of ritual killings. Cal examines the officer, and he talks about a cult, and a powerful leader, and lots of paranoid stuff. Chris finds a weird piece of jewellery in the park, where something has happened. Carmen practices brujeria, a Latin American magical practice; the ritual killings are associated with this, though a much darker, malevolent version.

When the police officer, paranoid and followed by mysterious agents of the all powerful cult, kills himself bloodily in a diner, Cal talks to other practitioners of magic. This, combined with Chris’s discovery of the magic amulet, draws their attention to him. He and Jessica, now dating, go to a community charity event run by one of the people thrown up in his investigation; it gets weird and they leave though not before the mysterious witch man has put something in Jessica’s powder compact. Meanwhile he fires Carmen for trying to put protective charms around the house and Chris.

There really is a cult, really doing sacrifice. And it’s worse than that, as it turns out that they are much closer to home than he thought. And maybe magic is real! The middle of the film creates a pretty good paranoid dread before everything is revealed.

Watch This: Creepy cultists stalk innocent family
Don’t Watch This: The end falls apart and despite some efforts it’s a bit racist