As the long shadow of summer begins to recede, director Ned Crowley (Middle Man) returns with Killing Faith, a stark and meditative Western set against the scorched plains of 1849 Arizona — a landscape as defined by its biblical vastness as it is by creeping dread. Arriving in cinemas this Friday via Shout! Studios, the film trades blazing six-shooters for a gnawing unease — a gripping descent into dust and dread, where faith withers beneath the weight of reason, and fear takes root as salvation becomes anything but certain.
Killing Faith eschews the familiar trappings of the Western to explore a territory defined not just by its harsh desert but by an all-consuming sickness. As a plague spreads, whispers grow around a young girl rumored to be cursed—wherever she goes, death follows. Some call it disease, others darker forces. Most flee. One man, Dr. Bender, stays.
Played with measured weariness by Oscar-nominated Guy Pearce (Brimstone, The Proposition, Ravenous), Bender is a physician long divorced from faith, charged with escorting a desperate mother (DeWanda Wise – Jurassic World: Dominion, The Harder They Fall, Poolman) and her daughter across unforgiving terrain in search of a faith healer. The mother believes her daughter is possessed; Bender sees illness. Yet belief proves powerless in the face of what’s to come.
Alongside Pearce and Wise, the cast includes Jamie Neumann (“Lovecraft Country”, “NOS4A2”), Jack Alcott (“Dexter: Resurrection”, “The Good Lord Bird”), Emily Ford (“Outer Range”), and Bill Pullman (The Serpent and the Rainbow, Brain Dead, Surveillance), all inhabiting a world that feels both recognisably historical and eerily timeless.
In anticipation of the film’s release, CinemaChords’ Ashley Northey sat down with Pearce to discuss the complexities of portraying a man unmoored from belief, the film’s restrained approach to genre, and the relentless weight of fear and uncertainty that shadows every step of their journey.
