‘Homestead’ Is Proof Christian Films Are Getting Better — But There’s Room For Improvement
One of the most haunting scenes in Darren Aronosky’s controversial Bible epic “Noah” is when the Ark, freshly launched from its moorings into the rising floodwaters, rests calmly on the ocean surrounded by screams. The bodies of sinners cleave to rocks as the water rises and the screams are slowly snuffed out by God’s wrath. It’s haunting precisely because it captures the painful realities of God’s relationship with man, that man can deserve a horrific fate for his own decisions that is considered rightly just. It’s a scene that generates empathy for those screaming because the visceral fear is what we would feel if we happened to be on the wrong side of judgment.
It’s a scene that came to mind this past weekend watching Angel Studios’ recent post-apocalyptic film “Homestead,” which offers a harrowing look at a group of Christian survivalists hiding in an armed mansion in the Rocky Mountains after terrorists set off a dirty bomb in Los Angeles and seemingly spark World War III. Surrounding this massive compound are refugees and families begging for food and shelter from the chaotic outside world, which those inside cynically calculate is impossible to give without compromising their food supply.
The post-apocalyptic genre is compelling largely because of the moral greys it forces people to contemplate. Video games and TV shows that place their characters in life-or-death scenarios gain tension from asking how far you’re willing to descend in such circumstances — often suggesting that it’s perversely fun to be uninhibited by the moral relaxing of the world. Are you willing to kill to save your own life? If two equal factions are fighting over a common macguffin to survive, who do you choose to save?
Editor’s note: spoilers ahead.
With “Homestead,” Angel Studios has set out to embrace that sort of dark storytelling but with a Christian edge. The film’s characters directly correlate their mansion a metaphorical Ark against the rising floodwaters of the chaotic world, which the film further correlates by stretching the survival scenario for 40 days. However, the film ends with a twist after one of its leads is nearly killed in a standoff, with his wife choosing to open the gates of the mansion and trust that God will provide enough to survive. But in choosing love, the film’s final monologue posits that humanity’s surviving remnants sparked a golden age of love and fellowship by choosing trust over fear — tearing down walls and opening hearts and minds!
Faithful though it may be, it is a horribly saccharine ending for a genre that generally abhors sentimentality. It’s a blind leap into the unknown with an abandon that makes the ending of “Megalopolis“ feel comparatively tame. It also marks an abrupt tone shift from a movie that had thus far mostly depicted harrowing and bleak situations that had resulted in characters being injured, killed, or traumatized.
“Homestead” isn’t the most notable faith-based film to be released of late, with Angel Studios’ concurrently released “Brave The Dark” being a far more confident and touching work of cinema. Regardless, it is a major release from one of the most popular studios of the moment, and warrants an interesting question: Is this film evidence of the overall direction of faith-based films? Are faith-based films getting better?
The genre of faith-based films, which my colleague Tyler Smith has done wonderful work exploring, has become one of the more fascinating developments in independent filmmaking in the past 20 years. Kendrick brothers films “Facing The Giants,” “Fireproof,” and “War Room,” Pureflix films like “God’s NOT Dead,” and others like Kirk Cameron’s “Saving Christmas” and “Heaven Is for Real” have created a new model for evangelical audiences to support fellow Christians and spread the word of God through the arts.
However, these films haven’t built the strongest cultural reputation. The release of “God’s NOT Dead” in particular resulted in thousands of negative online reviews and response videos from online atheists and film critics decrying the film as condensing, shallow, didactic, poorly argued, and unwilling to dig into the challenging arguments underlying real life apologetics debates in a manner that would make Christian audiences uncomfortable.
The lesson that faith-based filmmakers seem to have taken away from that general cultural consensus against those films was that they needed to reevaluate how they connected with the culture. In recent years, faith-based films produced by larger studios like The Blaze, The Daily Wire, and Angel Studios have leaned into making their films darker and edgier as a solution.
Films coming out of these studios like “Nefarious,” “The Sound Of Freedom,” “Shut In,” “Bonhoeffer,” and “Deliver Us” are much darker than the faith-based films of a decade ago. They explore themes like demonic possession, human trafficking, abuse, sexuality, and political extremism, and have generally embraced varying amounts of gore, violence, and profanity.
There are notable exceptions to this such as “Jesus Revolution,” “Sight,” “I Can Only Imagine,” “Surprised By Oxford,” and “Best Christmas Pageant Ever.” The popular faith-based show “The Chosen” has generally avoided extreme content as well. However, there is a danger in the contemporary genre to miss the forest through the trees. There is a risk of mistaking maturity for darkness, which has made many recent faith-based films feel superficial.
“Homestead” is illustratively messy precisely because it neither commits to its metaphor nor digs into the full ramifications of its story. It can’t mix a gritty survival drama with a sentimental study about the power of love without compromising both. Real life contains both light and dark elements and knowing how to string them together is the act of storytelling itself. Mature storytelling balances and distinguishes between comedy and tragedy for the benefit of the reader or viewer. While this darkening is evidence of faith-based filming growing up, it is still stuck in its edgy adolescent phase for the time being.
Tyler Hummel is a Nashville-based freelance journalist, a College Fix Fellow, and a member of the Music City Film Critics Association. He has contributed to The Dispatch, The New York Sun, Hollywood in Toto, The Pamphleteer, Law and Liberty, Main Street Nashville, North American Anglican, Living Church, and Geeks Under Grace.
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