Nerdly » ‘Curse of the Sin Eater’ VOD Review

08th Oct2024

‘Curse of the Sin Eater’ VOD Review

by Jim Morazzini

Stars: Carter Shimp, Marcelo Wright, Elizabeth Laidlaw, Larry Yando | Written by Adam Davis, Will Corona Pilgrim | Directed by Justin Denton

The sin eater already enjoyed some attention and coverage in horror films, some of which, like Sin Eater (2022), have also been reviewed here. Texas native and visual-effects artist Justin Denton now makes his indie full feature debut with Curse of the Sin Eater, after whetting his appetite for film directing earlier with the shorts Beware Crimson Peak (2015) and Burlap (2016). Penned by Adam Davis (Broken Ceiling) and Marvel’s MCU-collaborator Will Corona Pilgrim, Curse of the Sin Eater, while set in the here and now, thematically hearkens back to the sin-eating rituals from medieval days, as predominantly practised in British Wales and its surrounding counties.

Curse of the Sin Eater chronicles the fates of Rick Malone (Carter Shimp; The Year Between, Ghosts of the Void), a down-on-his-luck young construction worker who lives in at his old buddy Jeremy’s (Marcelo Wright; Chicago P.D.) dilapidated apartment somewhere in a Southside Chicago slum. Rick’s mother shot herself in the film’s opening scene flashback three years prior, and now he’s late for work, which nearly gets him let go by the construction site’s supervisor when he gets there.

Asking for a band-aid after he accidentally cuts himself, Rick is reluctantly let inside the majestic premises at the worksite by the owner’s stoic personal assistant Anton (Elizabeth Laidlaw; Good Guy with a Gun, The Red Line) to clean his wound. But when he peeps into an adjacent, empty room, the lure of a clipped bundle of banknotes on the table proves too hard to resist in his dire state. Sure enough, he gets caught, and Anton fires him on the spot, but the estate owner intervenes and invites him to come sit with him at his table and get acquainted.

The owner is an immeasurably wealthy but dying man who goes by the name Drayton (Larry Yando; Chicago Fire, 61st Street), which is a name that nicely ties in with Market Drayton in England where the last documented sin-eating ritual took place, as recently as in 1893.

When Drayton invites Rick again to join him as he’s having lunch, he makes him an offer that could change his fortunes forever: Rick will inherit everything he owns after his passing. One condition though, Rick will have to have, and eat, one dinner in its entirety (‘every last crumb’) off his corpse. Overwhelmed by this weird offer, Rick hesitates, but eventually succumbs to the alluring prospect of leaving all his struggles behind him for good and live the lavish life that he could never even dream of ever having.

Of course, this being a horror film, Drayton’s lucrative offer comes with a hefty price tag. One that involves Rick having to pawn his soul and dealing with the liabilities and consequences of eating someone else’s sins.

There are a couple of things that make this film stand out. First, there’s the mileage that Denton gets from a budget that has to have been restrictively sized. He smartly recruited a cast of talented supporting no-name TV actors, and the direction that Denton wanted to take his movie in involved some heavy (and pretty gruesome) effects work, almost all of which was capably done practically. Not to mention that shooting on location in the city of Chicago’s public space involves shooting permits ($250/day per their portal, in case you’re wondering).

The film is a deliberately paced affair; the Amazon and Blumhouse crowd will probably even find it slow. Some of this comes from the dialogue sparsity it was written with, which I feel is particularly noteworthy considering everyone’s TV background – a world where everybody rambles on and on at the top of their lungs as if their lives depended on it which, at least professionally, might as well even actually be the case. Not so here though, in fact, quite the contrary – much to my appreciation, as we follow Rick silently going about his daily business (nobody is yelling anything anywhere anyhow, imagine that).

He’s a sullen, almost stoner-type of guy, but Shimp imbues him with enough gravitas to keep a deeper rage alive and keep him interesting. He carries the film in front of the camera as he performs and carries his character through his ordeals, and he does so decidedly admirably. So does the rest of the cast with what they’re given to work with by the script, even when they’re not as fleshed out as Rick.

Curse of the Sin Eater has an interesting visual quality to it as a motion picture. Outdoor city location shots are mostly handheld and kinetic with cold and grey urban colour tones, while indoor scenes tend to be static or slow-panning, warm-coloured and hued in reds but never inviting; a sense of chilling and ominous coldness and dread remains. As the curse takes hold of our main character, also the colour palette of the sets, shots and scenes shifts ever so slightly. It’s those little details that betray the level of care and genre-sensibility that went into the film’s production.

As Rick sinks away into the curse’s grip and the horrific apparitions intensify, he feels his own grip on reality slipping and goes on a desperate quest to lift the curse, even if that means giving up the wealth he has been bequeathed. This is not something we have never seen before, but tropey as it may be, it’s still executed well enough to keep viewers’ interest onboard, helped by impressively measured acting performances, deliberate sound design and Denton’s atmospheric visuals.

Denton doesn’t overdo it with jump scares, and some scenes even veer towards the memorable – see it and you’ll know. One can only hope that someone in the boardroom of one of the big streamers is paying attention to how ‘less is more’ works in films like this, although the unfortunately generic movie title, even while thematically adequate, may not be lighting up anyone’s radar.

Most people involved with this film, including director Justin Denton and his entire cast for Curse of the Sin Eater, come from either the TV entertainment industry or the MCU, both of which effectively put them out of my scope. I was browsing my viewing options and landed on this film more or less by accident, but I’m glad I did because it caught me off guard. Curse of the Sin Eater is an effective, well-written, well-acted and well-made little horror film that’s totally worth watching if you’re a horror fan – isn’t most of you who come here? As for Denton, I’ll be keeping my eyes on him now that I know what he’s capable of.