AGNES Fantasia 2021 review: Mickey Reece’s latest is a blasphemous delight

Wildly prolific cult filmmaker Mickey Reece (Climate of the Hunter) is back in the habit with Agnes, an endlessly surprising and thrilling subversion of the demonic possession and nunsploitation genres.

Agnes opens on a covenant, where the young Sister Agnes (Hayley McFarland) suddenly explodes into a violent rage during dinner. Like a modern-day version of The Exorcist‘s young possessed Reagan, she hurls every curse word known to man at her fellow Sisters while the dining room table shakes uncontrollably and a teacup flies through the air. It’s an auspicious opening sequence that seems to be setting up a fairly standard exorcism film, but Mickey Reece still has plenty of tricks up his sleeve.

Shaken by Agnes’ inexplicable behaviour, the Church sends in the veteran priest Father Donaghue (Ben Hall) and the young priest-in-training Benjamin (Jake Horowitz) to investigate the incident at the covenant. Father Donaghue has been chosen for a reason — he has performed exorcisms in the past, which makes him useful to the Church even in light of being accused of sexually abusing underage boys.

This is one of the first wrenches Reece throws into the works — making one of the leads of the film a sexually abusive Priest is not only a pointed commentary on the complicity of the Church in its abuse scandals but also leaves audiences on decidedly uneasy ground. Benjamin is there to keep Father Donaghue in line before the Church transfers him overseas to cover up his offenses, a revelation that shakes the priest-to-be in his tracks. When he meekly asks if he’ll be safe in the Priest’s company, the Church emissaries break out laughing — “You’re a grown man Benjamin, you’re going to be just fine,” they tell him between giggles, as the score’s strings cry out and the camera quickly cuts between the various stuffed animal heads on the wall.

Reece balances this strain of absurdist black humour with moments of true horror throughout Agnes. As the unlikely pair of Church representatives arrive at the covenant, some of the Sisters can’t help but fawn over the handsome young Benjamin, who they immediately notice isn’t wearing a clerical collar.

While the tension between some of the Sisters and the men suddenly in their mist allows for some fun innuendo, things get deadly serious quickly as Father Donaghue performs an exorcism rite on Agnes, much to the shock of her fellow Sister (and recent confidant) Mary (Molly C. Quinn).

After the exorcism, which would be the final set piece in any other horror film, Agnes takes a sharp left turn and switches its focus to Mary. After leaving the covenant following the exorcism, we follow Mary as she tries to lead a new life on her own. She has a job working at a supermarket run by a sleazy boss and is trying to work through her shock over Agnes’ condition and her grief from a devastating loss she endured before she became a nun.

Flipping a campy horror film onto its head halfway through and morphing it into a drama about a young woman’s loss of faith is a trick even the devil himself would be proud of. The fact that Reece is able to make these two halves work together as a cohesive whole is pretty remarkable given their vast tonal shifts. It’s almost as if a deranged editor took the first half of a Ken Russel film and mashed it together with the final act of a Noah Baumbach movie. It shouldn’t work, but Reece directs Agnes with such style and confidence and the script is so unpredictable that you can’t help but fall under its winding spell.

A taut and surprising genre exercise, Agnes breathes new life into the well-trod exorcism tropes by examining everything that happens after the credits usually roll. It’s a thrilling experiment that works incredibly well and makes a great entry point into Reece’s vast and out-there filmography. With a moving central performance from Molly C. Quinn and one of the best ensembles we’re likely to see on-screen this year, Agnes will possess you long after its final moments.

Agnes screens virtually during the Fantasia International Film Festival.