Popcorn Frights 2023 Review: SAINT DROGO, Or, BROS for Folk Horror Fans

It’s funny that the first point of reference that comes to mind when watching folk horror film Saint Drogo, the second film from the team behind drag-world slasher Death Drop Gorgeous, isn’t The Wicker Man or even Midsommar, but last year’s Bros.

No, it’s not because they’re both movies about gay men. It’s because both are either partially (in the case of Bros) or mostly (in the case of Saint Drogo) set in the gay summer vacation destination of Provincetown, feature genuinely erotic group sex scenes, and include messaging that’s somehow simultaneously over-explained, preachy, and a bit muddled

But while Bros seeks to make its audience laugh, Saint Drogo aims to make us shriek, cringe, and maybe just consider our place on this planet that existed for millions of years before humans arrived. The film follows couple Caleb and Adrian (played by co-writers and directors Brandon Perras-Sanchez and Michael J. Ahern), who have been together for years but are struggling in their relationship, as they take a trip to Provincetown to investigate the seeming disappearance there of Caleb’s ex, Isaac (Tradd Sanderson).

If taking a vacation to find your boyfriend’s ex sounds like a bad time, Adrian would agree. At first, he humors Caleb’s desperate attempts to find Isaac, but as their trip goes on and they seem to be making no progress, he grows frustrated. Despite a script that’s often less than nuanced and performances that make you wish the writer/director/actors could afford to hire professional actors, this conflict succeeds as the emotional crux of the film. But it also muddies the waters of what the film is attempting to say.

Without giving away any of the film’s plot developments, it feels safe to take issue with an epilogue that all too explicitly ties the evil hidden in the town to gentrification. That epilogue feels unnecessary, not only as part of the narrative, but also seems to oversimplify and thereby confuse the film that’s come before.

Caleb is not a good partner to Adrian, and as the film goes on, his myopic commitment to discovering what’s happened to Isaac strains sympathy, almost leading to an identification with the mysterious townspeople, who are hiding something. But there’s an ambiguity there that viewers can make of what they will, until that epilogue.

Like the script, which offers grand ideas, a thrilling mystery, and rough dialogue, the visual world of the film fluctuates in quality. Most of the interior scenes are flatly lit and look as though they were shot without much concern for look, beyond getting the necessary characters in the frame.

In contrast, many of the exteriors are gorgeous, from static shots of the town in winter, seemingly devoid of life, to images of the ocean, whether they be its vastness as it approaches the horizon or the tide washing over wet sand. The film combines these beautiful and eerie images with an equally inviting and unnerving score to create an effective sense of dread.

It also helps with the dread that the movie opens with a not-exactly-convincing but wonderfully go-for-broke dream sequence of Isaac disemboweling himself with practical goop and guts. The film’s commitment to practical effects throughout is cause for celebration, as the gore and some more fantastical effects never look “real” but always amaze on the level of movie magic, especially in a later sequence involving teeth.

Saint Drogo is far from perfect, but it’s a beautiful piece of recognizably DIY cinema that manages to make you care about its characters and disquiet you. More than anything, though, it makes me excited to see what Perras-Sanchez, Ahern, and their third co-director (who also handled editing and sound mixing) Ryan Miller do next.