top of page
Rev Horror

Conjuring the Cult

Dir. Calvin Morie McCartney (2024)

A grieving father seeks the help of a strange cult in an attempt to raise her from the dead.


Grief can be one of the most powerful emotions, and a parent losing a child is supposed to be one of the most painful things anyone can experience. Losing someone to suicide adds an extra layer to that trauma, knowing that regardless of what the deceased was experiencing while they were alive that led to that decision, it was still ultimately a decision that removed them from the lives of those who cared about them. It's easy to imagine, then, why someone would be willing to do anything that they could do to get that person back. Such is the case in director Calvin Morie McCartney's new film Conjuring the Cult.


David Bryson (Neil Green) is a man who has just lost his daughter Masha (Chynna Rae Shurts), and he's tormented by her memory even in his sleep. His wife has divorced him because, in his belief, she blames him for their daughter's death. He attends a self-help group of the similarly afflicted, where he meets a group of women who claim they have a way to help him contact his deceased child. Unfortunately for him, these women belong to a cult with a nefarious objective, a plan that now includes David in his attempts to overcome his grief through any means necessary. Sometimes, however, it's better to leave the dead alone. Sometimes they have their own reasons for returning, too.

There are some genuinely creepy scenes in the film, some excellently done horror that is surprising for a film that is much heavier on the feels than it is the scares. Green is excellent as the grieving father, and ultimately Conjuring the Cult is as much a character study as it is a supernatural horror. The titular cult is eerie, and the dream sequences are at times jump-worthy. While not all of these scenes make sense within the context of the film, they're pretty damn effective and used well to punctuate the film and make it a lot scarier than it otherwise would've been.

Rather than leaning into a lot of effects work, which is a double-edged sword for indie films that often don't have either the money or the knowledge to make said effects work well, Conjuring the Cult instead relies on the performances from its star and those of the cult he seeks. That said, there is one scene in the film where it goes all out in this department, and it's incredibly well done. The cinematography is very indie, lending a dreamlike quality to even the non-dream sequences that works particularly well for the film. The visuals are great, providing a nice creepy atmosphere in the scenes that require them. The plot, once it eventually is explored fully, is far more in depth and compelling than you'd think at first glance.

The one area where the film struggles is the pacing. It's a slow moving film, though to be fair there are some decent scares sprinkled in to break up the occasional slowness. It avoids a lot of the ritualistic aspects of similar films like A Dark Song or From Black, and while those scenes provided some of the creepier moments from those films, it is a blessing for this one. Rather than getting a movie with rules and procedural constraints, we get a creepy story with an emotional punch that a lot of indie films shoot for and fail to achieve. Conjuring the Cult is a bit of a misnomer, because while there's certainly a cult, it's not the primary driver for the film. Instead, audiences are treated to a disturbing film about a grieving father who just wants things back the way that they were. McCartney's handling of the subject matter is very well done, and his reliance on Green to make the film work was a wise decision.


Who this movie is for: Indie horror fans, Supernatural horror lovers, Self-help groupies


Bottom line: Conjuring the Cult is a creepy film with some excellent performances. There are some decent scares within, and while it does drag a little at times, it's one of the better indie flicks I've seen recently. If you can scare me without breaking the bank, it's definitely worth checking out, even if most of the methods have been done before. If you want to check it out for yourself, you can find where it's streaming right below on our new JustWatch widget!



bottom of page