Is Apostle Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot

A rescue mission with an unfortunate hiring process

Thomas Richardson sails to a remote Welsh island in 1905 because his sister, Jennifer, has been kidnapped by a cult and is being held for ransom. The cult is led by Malcolm Howe, who founded it with two other convicts, Frank and Quinn. Thomas poses as a convert and meets Howe, who tells the newcomers that the island's barren land became fertile through blood sacrifice. Thomas then spots two young villagers sneaking home after a tryst, Jeremy (Frank's son) and Ffion (Quinn's daughter), and he forces Jeremy to admit the truth: Jennifer was taken for ransom because the cult cannot afford the steady supply of animal sacrifices that keeps the island fertile.

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An old woman who runs a lot faster than she looks

One of the newcomers tries to assassinate Malcolm, and Thomas steps in and is wounded. That night Malcolm parades Jennifer through the village and announces that she will be killed unless her co-conspirator comes forward. Thomas is chased by an old woman and hides in a beach cave covered in markings that depict a deity. Back in the village, Malcolm visits a barn where that same old woman, who is the island's deity, is held in tree roots. He scolds her for showing herself to Thomas and then feeds her his own blood, and the vegetation holding her blooms. Malcolm's daughter Andrea hears Thomas's story: he was a missionary in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion, and he lost his faith when his god did nothing. She hides him in a shack out in a wheat field.

A purification ritual with no refund policy

This is the scene people warn each other about, and it happens in the middle of the film. Ffion tells Jeremy she is pregnant, and the two plan to elope. Quinn is furious and performs a forced abortion on Ffion. Jeremy stabs Quinn, but Quinn blames Jeremy for Ffion's murder and stages a purification ritual to kill him in public by cutting away the back of his skull. Quinn then denounces Malcolm as a false prophet and says Malcolm must execute Thomas to prove himself. Frank is enraged by his son's death and attacks Quinn, and that gives Thomas the chance to escape.

A barn with a sack and a meat grinder

Frank and Thomas flee to the barn where the Goddess is held. Frank goes in to kill her and is killed himself by a masked figure called the Grinder. Thomas watches the Grinder feed Jeremy's body to the Goddess, then sneaks past and finds Jennifer alive but hanging in a sack. While he frees her, the Grinder knocks him unconscious. Thomas wakes up on a meat-grinding table with hooks through his hands and legs holding him in place. He gets free and kills the Grinder.

The cult's financial plan turns out to be worse than the ransom

Quinn tells Jennifer and Andrea, who are both captive, that he locked up the Goddess after he and Malcolm realized she had real powers. He plans to impregnate both women repeatedly and use their children as blood sacrifices. Meanwhile the Goddess shows Thomas how she ended up with the cult and begs him to free her. He does it by setting her on fire, which comes as a surprise. The village catches fire and the villagers run for the boats.