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d. John Schlesinger; pr. Beverly J. Camhe, John Schlesinger, Michael Childers; scr. Mark Frost; novel. Nicholas Conde; ph. Robby Muller; m. J. Peter Robinson; ed. Peter Honess; cast. Martin Sheen, Helen Shaver, Harris Yulin, Jimmy Smits, Robert Loggia, Harley Cross, Elizabeth Wilson, Richard Masur (114 mins)

Strange religious beliefs have long been an object of fascination and loathing because of what is often perceived as the threat they pose to established religion, particularly Christianity, and its associated moral order.

It is precisely this balance of reactionary cultural paranoia and dramatic challenge to religious morality that forms the basis of the often potent and oddly downbeat thriller The Believers. The film was directed by veteran John Schlesinger at a time when his reputation was in decline and he segued towards lurid, rather bleak films (with this and Pacific Heights) which seemed intent to explore and even explode contemporary notions of moral and ethical propriety. In the case of The Believers, he was aided by a strong script by Mark Frost who would shortly refine his own sense of weirdness when he collaborated with David Lynch on Twin Peaks. What this meant for the eventual fate of The Believers was to virtually assure it of at best a footnote in the horror / thriller echelon as it had been practically dismissed as competent at best and risible at worst. Still, in the context of 1980s horror films, its bizarre and problematic religiosity makes it something of a theological curio. While it is unlikely ever to be rescued from this level it is unfair to dismiss it entirely as there is much in it which is purposefully unsettling: as an admittedly frightening vision of cultural and religious paranoia, The Believers is most intriguing.

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With his son, he moves into a new apartment, tended to by a devoted Hispanic house-keeper. Slowly, Sheen develops a romantic interest in his new landlady (Helen Shaver), though this puts an emotional strain on his son, who has not adjusted to his mother’s death. Meanwhile, on the site of a ritual cult murder of a child, a distraught policeman (Jimmy Smits) goes into a religious frenzy and is confined before he can kill himself. Sheen is called in to talk to Smits, who believes that his life is in danger. Sheen is disbelieving but supportive and indeed soon proves to be the one person Smits contacts when he escapes custody, hoping to relay to Sheen some information. When an unusual fate besets Smits, Sheen begins to look into the supposedly benign religious sub-culture of Santeria, popular in Latin American segments of the city and even practiced by his own housekeeper. As Sheen investigates, he uncovers a bizarre cult in the middle of New York high society that seems to believe in a more malevolent form of the religion. At one such encounter, Shaver is touched by a mysterious holy man in a trance and slowly develops a sickness. In the midst of this mounting tumult, Sheen sends his son to stay with his relatives.

Thus, it acknowledges that such ancient pre-Christian religions may have a greater touch with spiritual forces but sees this as an inherent evil and subversive because it attacks the relationship between father and son that is at the core of any Christian patriarchal society. The Christian ideal of the innocence of children is here threatened by the powerful cult, as the ritual sacrifice of children (the ultimate horror) represents the kind of exotic religious devotion that is both an affront to, and threatens to erode, Christian ideals. By equating such perverted beliefs with the monstrousness of cultural otherness, the film adopts a reactionary posture which by extension equates any alternative beliefs with threat and menace. Although this is perhaps the most problematic aspect, within the film’s own world it does convincingly examine the threat to Christianity posed by religious otherness and in the process creates a neat essay on how fanatical conviction can govern and override questions of morality: the perversion of religion. The clash of religions that is fought over the fate of innocents makes for a literal and metaphorical assessment of child sacrifice.

Hence, the film’s depiction of the cult’s excess and its ultimate repulsiveness is seen as both selfish (intended to save the adults at the expense of the child) and a bizarre inversion of the idea that God made his son for sacrifice.

There are powers beyond Christian control that will seek to corrupt and pervert Christian mythology for reprehensible ends. In the face of such religious conviction and supernatural force, the film makes a point of structuring itself in terms of the steady erosion of Sheen’s belief in rationality. As a psychiatrist, he is a man of science and reason who has no room for the supernatural. Yet when faced with the power of religious belief he is forced to concede the domain of the irrational and the malevolence within it and in so doing seek protection in alternative religion. In its way then, the film examines the failure of both science and Christianity – hence, the idea of Christ’s powerlessness is established in the first scene, as Sheen’s wife is seen wearing a cross, which does not protect her from a mere accident. The sinister challenge to Christianity unveiled here precedes the breakdown of Christian moral and ethical supremacy: with outrage more than suppressed glee. That the film opts for the resolution it does partly negates this potentially subversive posture. Nevertheless, the root of spiritual malevolence (and the source of horror here) is the threat to the Patriarchal Christian bond between father and son.

The anamorphic widescreen transfer is as competent as are mid-priced releases from this distributor. It is surprisingly clear at first although becomes mildly uneven as it proceeds. An establishing cut from a primitive ritual to contemporary New York nicely carries the sense of a “foreign” religious threat to American patriarchy and suggests an anthropological aspect that adds a certain conviction to the movie – indeed, the film is precise in its rendering of religious practices and cleverly builds up its depiction of Santeria (and the evils that this religion brings with it). The transfer, however, has added problems: it looks overly oily at times, colors are often luridly bright and flesh tones are distinctly orangey. However, when best preserved, the color design manages a vivid, shadowy Expressionism in its clash of hot and cold. Religious objects gradually become ominous signifiers (their power even superseding that of the crucifix introduced so ironically in the film’s opening scenes) and there is a clear sense of mounting dread and unease throughout this effective but flawed horror-thriller. The notion of a coven of believers at influential levels of society works well to equate evil with power. Set design and location use adds a surreal, labyrinthine design to the concluding sequences. However, the use of racial minorities to connote the initial religious threat underlies the potential reactionary reading of this film as outlined above.

The sound is available in a clear Dolby Digital Surround benefiting the film’s more overtly frightening scenes, although the deliberate build-up to the frenzied and hallucinogenic climax is also well preserved here. There are nice directional effects which slightly extend the film’s fine sense of off-screen space and add to the escalating unease. The forceful score is a quite unusual and distinctive amalgam of influences and effectively adds to the sense of menace, as well as stressing the origins of this hazard in “other” cultures via its incorporation of Latin American and African rhythms. Voices and isolated details are always crisp and convincing and there is a good sense of increasingly oppressive weather – the idea of a coming storm is hence used for intense metaphorical value throughout the film. Religious trance, conviction and even frenzy inform the film in the latter stages and the sound design becomes ever more ominous and shrill. The aural design thus carries the film from religious unease through to a state of near delirium. Hallucinogenic distortion (of voices especially) is used well in the latter stages as Sheen must find the strength of will to battle the cult’s plans. Also, the transfer is quite adept at preserving the numerous quiet lulls which precede sudden outbursts of sound in this film. The mounting desperation in the voices of Sheen and especially Shaver adds tremendously to the film’s impact.

Although this pained, despairing film seeks to examine notions of religious otherness, by framing this in terms of a malevolent threat it makes it difficult to separate the treatment of the threat to Christianity from the surrounding reactionary posture. However, The Believers is a gripping, frightening thriller about the erosion of Christian morality and some explanatory special features may have thus helped to flesh out the filmmakers’ intentions in this regard: sadly, all that is provided on this DVD is a teaser and original theatrical trailer.