The Appearance is a 2018 horror film about an Inquisitor and man of science who investigates the death of a monk and a young woman accused of killing him.
I won’t deny that it takes more that a little bit to get hooked into writer/director Kurt Knight‘s chilling The Appearance, a tale of witchcraft and religion set in medieval Europe, but when it does – and I promise you it will – there’s no turning back. Small but elegant, this moody and challenging project is a small wonder in terms of what it accomplishes with such limitations, grounded by a few energetic performances and a darkness that keeps you constantly in question. It’s sleek and smart, fooling you with what seems like standards of the genre before pulling it all right out from under you.
In an old stone monastery, frightened monks gather over the body of a fellow servant of God, slain in the night, his chest full of puncture wounds. Suicide? … or the work of the devil at the hands of an evil curse cast on a young local girl named Isabel (Baylee Self). Into the lot comes Mateho (Jake Stormoen), a young Inquisitor who is meant to decide the girl’s fate, his trust in science meeting resistance from the faithful men, especially the old Abbott Scipio (Michael Flynn), who is convinced Isabel is consumed by dark powers, slowly souring the monks and the people in the nearby village. Can Mateho prove her innocence before she’s burned at the stake or will he too be overcome by an evil seeping in from the shadows.
If you’ve had the good fortune to see the 1986 Sean Connery drama The Name of the Rose – and if you haven’t you really should – then the immediate premise of The Appearance will feel a little familiar, almost an exact duplicate in fact. A monk is dead, a young beauty accused, and a skeptical Brother charged with unearthing the truth. However, despite parallels that run awfully close throughout, Knight manages to keep his movie just far enough to the side that it stands on its own more as a companion piece than a direct copy.
While it certainly doesn’t have the budget (or star power) as The Name of the Rose, it does do a lot with what it has, creating a very palpable experience that is always convincing, the sets and costumes authentic and the dialogue true. I admire Knight’s commitment, boldly pushing the story to a full two hours, allowing these few characters to flourish, most notably Mateho and Scipio who grow to extreme odds on what is happening at the monastery. There’s also Kristian Nairn from Game of Thrones in a supporting role, adding some beef to the whole thing.
While the bodies pile up and Knight layers in a some trippy moments of horror, the best parts of course are tracking the mystery. There’s a lot that feels fantastical however, even supernatural, some of it testing Mateho’s scientific convictions, leading to a third act that feels more akin to Robert Eggers‘s The Witch (2016) than Connery’s Rose. There are some truly dark moments and thankfully Knight wisely avoids the jumpscare bullet train and sticks to more creative imagery to elicit his frights, most of which feel earned, especially as it steams toward its final commentary on faith, vengeance, and women.
This won’t be for everyone, the dank and claustrophobic setting purposefully dreary, however, it’s a minor miracle how well it all pulls you in, it feeling like something lesser at its start before proving itself a very worthy entry in the genre. Kudos to Knight for sticking to his guns and building a slow burn that refuses to play into expectations, becoming a sort of monster in the dark horror story (like Alien) with a medieval twist. Recommended.