Recent Oscar nominee Guy Pearce in a supernatural thriller set in the Old West is the recipe for a dish I’d happily consume. Written and directed by Ned Crowley, “Killing Faith” brings those ingredients together with DeWanda Wise and Bill Pullman adding a little extra seasoning of their own. The result is a wildly original feature that bends several genres into a peculiar yet entertaining experience.

The story is set in 1849 in the aftermath of a widespread sickness which broke out some ten years earlier. Wise gets an extra meaty role playing Sarah, a recently freed slave who is convinced that her blonde-haired caucasian daughter (Emily Katherine Ford) is possessed by the devil. It’s a wild and eerie premise which Crowley slickly mixes with his Old West setting to create something that sounds at odds with itself but that fits together perfectly.

Sarah’s daughter is forced to wear big pink mittens because living things instantly die whenever they come into contact with her bare hands. The unexplained power/curse has the local one-horse townsfolk spooked to the point they have banned Sarah from bringing the child around. In need of some supernatural help, Sarah resolves to make the long and perilous trip to the Ross Corner, home of a renowned (or notorious) self-proclaimed faith healer named Preacher Ross (Pullman).

Unfortunately for Sarah, no one in town is willing to escort her to Ross Corner, not even for the sizable payday she’s offering. That is until she meets Dr. Bender (Pearce), a widowed physician tormented by loss and ostracized by the community he once served. Bender is a tragic soul who spends more of his time getting high on ether than practicing medicine. He has his own issues with the town and is in need of money. So he agrees to take Sarah and her daughter to Ross Corner.

Bender is a broken man who has lost his faith. Sarah is convinced something evil was taken residence inside her daughter. Bender scoffs at her theory, insisting the child is just a carrier of the plague that had swept across the territory. It leads to some compelling conversations on the trail and around the campfire. Through them Crowley gives us closer looks inside the two characters while also revealing an unexpected connection that comes more into view as the story progresses.

As the three outcasts venture across the unforgiving countryside they encounter an array of dangerous hombres, eccentric individuals, and downright chilling psychopaths. They’re followed by Edward (Jack Alcott), Sarah’s simple yet bighearted ranch hand. They’re tracked by a ruthless bounty hunter named Whitey (Jamie Neumann). They run into a mysterious Native American who goes by Shakespeare (Raoul Max Trujillo). And in the film’s most memorable scene, they come across a chilling family consisting of a creepy matriarch (played with demented sophistication by Joanna Cassidy), a nonverbal young woman, and a guitar-plucking brute with a burlap sack over his head.

Bender’s faith is tested with each unexplainable turn in their bleak and unsettling journey. As he’s squaring off against his own personal demons, Sarah gets cruel reminders of the reality she lives in. Crowley uses them, along with their internal and external conflicts, to astutely critique American history, marginalization, and man’s penchant for violence. He exposes the sins of humanity through the grim depravity of his story. But it’s also through his unnerving imagery, specifically a series of brutal nightmare sequences and bursts of extreme bloody violence.

For most of its runtime, “Killing Faith” remains a dark yet absorbing genre-bender that does things with the Western that we rarely see. It’s only in the final act that the movie struggles to keep its footing. But even then Crowley makes some interesting choices and takes some unexpected chances. And that’s something that can be said about “Killing Faith” as a whole. Crowley’s audacious vision combined with some firmly committed and capable performances ensure we are never disengaged from this mysterious and macabre Old West odyssey.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS