A Dust-Caked Thriller With Plague and Paranoia

Read Time:4 Minute, 56 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Killing Faith
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Genre: Western, Thriller
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director(s): Ned Crowley
Writer(s): Ned Crowley, David Henri Martin
Cast: Guy Pearce, DeWanda Wise, Bill Pullman, Jack Alcott, Emily Katherine Ford, Raoul Max Trujillo, Joanna Cassidy, Jamie Neumann
Where to Watch: in theaters October 3, 2025

RAVING REVIEW: KILLING FAITH takes the bones of a classic western and stitches them together with something far more haunting: a sense that the land itself has been cursed. Set in the Arizona territory of 1849, the film drops us into a plague-scarred desert where superstition and science are at war. On one side, a grieving doctor numbed by ether, clinging to what little logic he has left; on the other, a mother convinced her daughter’s strange affliction is nothing less than demonic. Between them lies the question the movie keeps circling: is the evil real, or are we simply desperate to believe in it?

Director Ned Crowley leans into the starkness of the landscape, letting stretches of sand and silence feel as punishing as the outlaws and sickness haunting the trail. What begins as a straightforward mission quickly unravels into a fable about conviction and survival. Guy Pearce plays the doctor with a hollow stare, weighed down by grief and addiction. His disbelief is more than skepticism; it’s a shield against further heartbreak. DeWanda Wise’s Sara counters him with a performance brimming with fear and resolve—she sees her daughter’s condition as a battle with the Devil himself, and her desperation lends the film its pulse. Bill Pullman enters later as the enigmatic Preacher Ross, a figure who complicates notions of salvation and corruption.

The girl at the center of it all—silent, her hands hidden behind frayed mittens—embodies the film’s most chilling conceit: everything she touches dies. The ambiguity around her condition gives the narrative its edge. Is she a victim of the plague sweeping the land, or a supernatural force in human form? The movie never hurries to answer, and that hesitation is where it builds its strongest tension. KILLING FAITH doesn’t shy away from brutality. Its frontier is no romantic backdrop; it’s a place of rotting corpses, hollowed towns, and men quick to exploit fear. Crowley stages sequences that echo war films as much as westerns, with long treks through wastelands punctuated by ambushes and betrayals. Yet the violence is never glorified—it’s treated as inevitable fallout from a society already unraveling.

Where the film excels most is in its atmosphere. Cinematography emphasizes emptiness, often dwarfing characters against the desert or framing them through hazy filters that suggest sickness seeping into the soil. Sound design is equally potent, mixing the rasp of wind with sudden spikes of violence or whispered voices that could be hallucinations.

That ambition comes with some trade-offs. At nearly two hours, the movie occasionally lingers too long on mood at the expense of propulsion. Some supporting figures are painted in broad strokes, more archetypes than fully drawn characters. The balance between western grit and horror-tinged mysticism may leave audiences divided: it isn’t action-packed enough for those craving a traditional western, nor frightening enough for pure horror seekers. Instead, it occupies an uneasy middle ground, which is both its strength and its risk.

Still, the performances keep it anchored. Pearce commits to a man barely holding himself together, turning what could’ve been a stock skeptic into a character whose collapse feels inevitable. Wise’s portrayal of Sara carries emotional urgency; her conviction is both maddening and sympathetic. Pullman, as the preacher, adds texture late in the story, his charisma tinged with menace. Together, they elevate the material into something that lingers.

KILLING FAITH interrogates the comfort and cruelty of belief. Faith, whether religious or scientific, is shown as a coping mechanism in a world collapsing under plague and violence. The doctor’s skepticism, the mother’s devotion, the preacher’s charm—all reflect different ways of confronting the inexplicable. By the end, the film doesn’t hand out easy answers. Instead, it leaves viewers with the unsettling possibility that the real horror isn’t whether the girl is cursed, but how quickly people are willing to condemn her for it.

KILLING FAITH is not a flawless film, but it’s a memorable one. Its fusion of western and supernatural allegory produces moments of stark power. It’s grim, atmospheric, and willing to wander into ambiguity. For audiences open to its slow-burn tension, it’s a ride worth taking—bleak, thought-provoking, and uncomfortably timely in its portrait of fear shaping faith.

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