Can't believe this movie gets so many bad reviews.. if tarantino directed this it would get double the percentage on rotten tomatoes

Well..... that was fun. Seriously though how did this film even get made? There is some pretty fucked up shit in this and its 148 minutes long and has almost zero commercial appeal, plus it looks like it cost a bit to make. Yet for it's long running time I was never at all bored and I felt it moved at a smooth pace. It's an underseen film that I could definitely see getting somewhat of a cult following like Red Hill although they are very different westerns. Oh and Guy Pearce is underrated in just about everything.

would've been a 7 if characters didn't die (and survive) in horrendously stupid ways

This controversial western is fucking brutal and holds nothing back as Guy Pearce plays a satan terminator in the old west, a horrendously vile entity. Brutal whipping, child rape, someone gutted with their intestines wrapped around their neck, pedophilia, hangings, tongue cutting and rape... yeah... it’s a hard watch with a shitload of disturbing atrocity scenarios. I don’t think I’ll be revisiting this. Not really for me.

First things first, Brimstone is batshit crazy. I mean, seriously - there is no possible way to anticipate the events that unfold just by reading the vague synopsis. I really haven't experienced a story this dark and disturbing in a while, but fortunately for me, it's my kind of crazy. Guy Pearce gives one of the most sinister performances in recent memory and Dakota Fanning excels in using her striking features, eyes in particular, to maximum effect. Told non-chronologically in four chapters (titled Revelation, Exodus, Genesis, and Retribution), Brimstone is a deviant film with deviant characters that spits on the typical three-act structure and is sure to polarize anyone willing to give it a go. Thankfully, I ended up on the side that really enjoyed it. So far, Brimstone is one of my favorite films of 2017. Highly recommended - especially if you're in the mood for something visually stunning, thematically distasteful, and refreshingly different!

tries a little to hard to be something between the next big thing and The Proposition, a bulkily orchestrated heavy-hander and a grim and muddy neo-western. the tone is too serious to being able to enhance a proper cynicism, the biblical violence overshadows other elements. this wants to be an epic but is more like an oversized pathos porridge.

genuinely one of the worst films I’ve ever watched. trauma porn from a director who clearly hates women. Dakota fanning baby girl we need to get you away from these awful horror scripts

“People think it’s the flames that make Hell unbearable. It’s not. It’s the absence of love.”

Brimstone is dark, disturbing, violent, methodical and bad to the F’N bone! It’s one of the most unique entires into the western genre ever and its twisted imagery guarantees that it will stay with me for a long long time. 

The performances are great especially from Dakota Fanning and Guy Pearce who is absolutely diabolical. Kit Harrington also puts in a solid performance and makes me think he’d be perfect for a live action John Marston. 

The cinematography is bleak and pale and it sets the mood perfectly. 

Overall, while I do think it is a little too long, Brimstone is a solid western, but it’s not for the faint of heart. 

4/5
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