Director Daniel J. Phillips takes us into the unsettling world of religious horror with “Diabolic”. It’s a well-traveled subgenre that has been approached from nearly every angle imaginable. Yet when done right, filmmakers have shown that there are still some good frights to be found, even if we’re in well-travelled territory. Sadly, that isn’t the case with the underwhelming “Diabolic”.

“Diabolic” is a slow-moving supernatural chiller that hits many of the same thematic and subgenre beats that we’ve seen in numerous other movies of its kind. That said, it still would have worked if the film could have added just a little more of its own original flavor. Yet none of its efforts at doing so are all that compelling.

To their credit, the screenwriters (Phillips, Mike Harding, and Tricia Madsen) attempt to build a foundation that we’re told is inspired by true events. But the perfunctory buildup quickly leads to a glaringly ill-advised trip that soon devolves into another story about weird, rigid religious people and one malevolent evil spirit. And from the movie’s perspective, one is just as bad as the other.

Elizabeth Cullen plays Elise, a young artist suffering from debilitating blackouts. As her episodes become more frequent, they grow longer and more violent. Desperate for help, Elise’s psychiatrist offers her one more option before admitting her to the hospital. He believes her blackouts are the result of buried trauma from growing up in the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints – a fringe offshoot of the Mormon Church. He suggests exposure therapy. More specifically, that she travels to the church and seeks help from their healers. Yikes.

So Elise, her supportive husband or boyfriend Adam (John Kim), and her self-invited best friend Gwen (Mia Challis) load up and travel deep into the forest, well away from civilization to the off-the-grid fundamentalist compound. There they meet the homely Hyrum (Robin Goldsworthy) and his stern mother, Alma (Genevieve Mooy). Together they all engage in a warped, hallucinogenic drug-induced ritual at the site of her worst trauma. What could go wrong?

As the baffling character choices mount up, the story branches out in a couple of directions. One involves a series of clunky flashbacks as Elise begins recalling her relationship with a fellow church member, Clara (Luca Sardelis). The other introduces the vengeful spirit of a cursed witch (Seraphine Harley) that is inadvertently released during the healing ritual. Neither leave much of an impression. The Clara bit is an angle we’ve seen countless times before. And the witch isn’t established enough to be as threatening as she needs to be.

In terms of horror, “Diabolic” puts most of its effort into creating a creepy atmosphere. And that’s possibly the movie’s biggest strength. It also does some pretty cool things in the practical effects department. But outside of one lone gloriously gruesome slaying, none of the few kills we get stand out at all. That, along with a story that often seems at odds with itself, leaves us with a movie that has the right setting and develops the right tone, but that lacks the narrative freshness or genre punch to stand out from the crowd.