Abigail Before Beatrice is writer-director Cassie Keet‘s (Scream Therapy) latest film, a drama with a constant sense of looming dread. Abigail Before Beatrice world premiered on June 19th at Bentonville (Arkansas) Film Festival, an official selection from the ‘Homegrown Competition’ category. After watching the film, I agree with the accolades for its emotional and unnerving quality. It was quickly followed by a screening at Chattanooga Film Festival. These back-to-back screenings are definitely warranted. 

When we first meet a woman named Beatrice (Olivia Taylor Dudley), she is caught tending to the garden by the new owners of the house where she used to live. She is shy and socially inept. She lives a solitary life, and there is a true crime podcast episode she is avoiding listening to. It turns out she hasn’t been quite right since the leader of a cult of vulnerable women was put in prison.  When a fellow cult survivor and former lover, Abigail (Riley Dandy), tries to reconnect with her frayed friend, we find out just how much of a devout believer she still is- and how she ended up that way.

The story that Abigail Before Beatrice lays out is pretty airtight so far as the writing goes. It was very believable to have a cult leader released from prison as a catalyst, very thought out. But we only get moments shared by victim memories in order to try and piece it together. It felt like a very real place for characters to end up. A cult that targets low-income, unhoused, vulnerable, lonely women who then end up taken advantage of by a domineering, manipulative man. A depiction of emotional manipulation: “You deserve good things”, yet never giving them. A haunting portrait of unhealthy attachment and putting all your eggs in one narcissistic basket (can you tell I’ve been to therapy?), when the cult stuff gets ugly, we are already emotionally invested.

Abigail Before Beatrice gives its story to us in a non-linear style, which is cool and always makes for a much more interesting watch. This way of storytelling fuels our disquieting need to learn what has happened, and what will happen. Is this scene going to be it? Is what we are about to see going to explain Beatrice’s behaviour? It’s really an entrancing film.

I am not usually one for the drama genre; I like it insane and bloody. So I am always surprised and elated when a drama film gets me enthralled by its energy. Fitting somewhere between Martha Marcy May Marlene and Kill List, audiences expecting only a tense drama might get a surprise at the number of knives. We all like films about cults, but  Abigail Before Beatrice shows the aftermath can be just as chilling as anything that might have happened. Writer-director Cassie Keet brings Mumblegore back (did it ever leave?) with its long silences and an ending that feels so right but also violently devastating. I’m always down for creepy cult stuff- in horror flicks (and sadly, reality,) the whole cult ends up dead, but this film is about the emotional damage of surviving.

Olivia Taylor Dudley (The Magicians) is such a captivating presence on screen, just as magnetic when she isn’t speaking as when she is. A team effort between Keet and Taylor Dudley, playing Beatrice perfectly, portraying a woman with trauma and a not yet deprogrammed victim. Taylor Dudley’s performance makes us feel as isolated and alone as Keet’s resonating protagonistdespite her being so strange.

Abigail Before Beatrice is a fine addition to indie films with to do with cults, I would not be surprised if it later becomes an example that people refer to. Benjamin Dunn produced for Little Black Dog Entertainment, with Mindy Van Kuren for Nanu Pictures, alongside New Harvest Creative. 

“[the film’s] way of storytelling fuels our disquieting need to learn what has happened, and what will happen. Is this scene going to be it? Is what we are about to see going to explain Beatrice’s behaviour? It’s really an entrancing film.”