Daniel J. Phillips (Awoken) is back in the horror director’s chair with Diabolic, a new feature co-written alongside Mike Harding and Ticia Madsen. The film draws inspiration from FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)–influenced stories, a sect rarely explored in cinema, blending factual inspiration with psychological dread.
Starring Elizabeth Cullen (Elvis), John Harlan Kim (The Little Things), and Mia Challis (“Outer Banks”), Diabolic explores how rigid doctrine and hidden folklore can shape and distort human experience under the guise of faith.
Taking place in a closed-off religious community, Diabolic follows Elise (Cullen), a young woman desperate for relief from a troubling affliction. Her search for answers pulls her deeper into a cloistered world where strict rules and buried trauma twist faith into absolute terror, and past wounds resurface, leaving her perception of reality fractured and hallucinatory.
In the lead-up to Diabolic hitting theaters this Friday, February 13, and On Digital February 20, CinemaChords sat down with Daniel J. Phillips and Elizabeth Cullen to discuss the film’s exploration of faith, trauma, and psychological terror, and how Cullen navigates playing a character caught between personal trauma and the escalating horrors she faces.
