Father David (Graham Skipper - Beyond the Gates) is a priest at a failing church. His sermons are all about helping people in need, and so when he encounters homeless man, Terry (Gardner) with nowhere to go, he offers him a place at his home for the night. It isn't long however before Terry has invited his girlfriend Lexi (Taylor Zaudtke - Sadistic Intentions, After Midnight) to stay also, and they convince David to let them remain at the house for the Christmas period. The priest sees it as an opportunity to rehabilitate the pair, hoping his teachings will get them to follow God and give up their sinful ways, but the more time he spends with them, the more it seems that he is the one becoming changed by them.
I thought The Leech was a good film, but it wasn't a comfortable watch. This is most prevalent in the first half of the movie where you really come to feel for David. It felt like a horror film for introverts,with David seemingly lost with how to get back control over his life, and whose peace is permanently ruined by the increasingly unwelcome guests. The only voice of sanity is Rigo (Rigo Garay), a former drug addict who David helped a year previously, and who recognises how bad the two guests really are. It becomes a series of uncomfortable scenes, with Terry in particular being an awful human being. From the title, I assumed that Terry secretly had ulterior motives, but it did seem like he was just an awful person. Gardner was great in the role and remains constantly unhinged throughout.
His character swears, plays loud rock music, drinks and smokes heavily and does a lot of drugs. It leads to some cringe inducing moments, such as when David walks in on the man pleasuring himself.
David was the character with the biggest character path, from his mild and meek persona, over the course of the movie he becomes more angry and bitter, a reverse parallel to a scene in which the priest tells Terry that the church follows more the teachings of the New Testament God, someone who is far more peaceful than the wrathful God of the Old Testament.
I'm not sure I could have dealt with a whole film that followed the uncomfortable first half. Thankfully things get far more demented and weird, which is reflected the the comedic tone getting increasingly darker and more apparent. By the time David, with a heavily bandaged face, is furiously preaching in the dark to an empty church, it became a lot harder to take this film seriously, something that was intentional. The highlight for me was a drinking game scene around the midway point which is the catalyst for David's downfall. It leads to some trippy drug sequences reflected with blurring effects on screen. The film felt well put together, and it was impressive that despite just the four characters the film flowed competently, showing the dizzying momentum in a believable way. There were even some more traditional horror elements mixed in, suggesting a supernatural explanation for everything, though those moments (such as flickering lights and demonic voices) could easily be explained away by David's increasingly unbalanced state of mind. The comedy becomes ridiculously dark by the film's conclusion, with time for a wonderfully edited sequence that I won't ruin, other than to say it involves David's mom's ashes.
The Leech is a cautionary tale about having too much belief in the power of your own actions, about how one simple good deed can lead to an avalanche of bad results, and how easy it can be to be corrupted. It was at times hard to watch, but the folly of the protagonist made that easier as the film played out. The Leech heads to the Arrow streaming subscription service on December 5th in the US, Canada, UK and Ireland.
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