How ‘The Occult’ tackles love wrapped up in faith with date-night fun

Movies have for the past decade been an rollercoaster ride of good and bad. Plenty of blockbuster flops have made headlines alongside sleeper hits from newly discovered voices. Hollywood’s adjustment to the ridges and valleys of the business landscape over the past decade have been one reason why Peter Hyoguchi skipped regular distribution channels and brought his latest film “The Occult” directly to small theaters in a touring show across the country.

The other is because it was a seven-year labor of love, one that he started with an idea for a film focused around intimacy, faith and the impact relationships have on individual belief.

He had a lot of advantages in bringing the 2+ hour horror flick he describes as the perfect “date night” movie to life. His cast spent a lot of time together even before rehearsal getting to know one another, connecting on a level beyond the regular relationship between actors on a set. They spent time as friends.

Lead co-stars Kelly Walker and Ryan W. Garcia are married, so their scenes together throughout the film provide a portrait of a couple who despite just a brief connection as characters in the movie sink to a relationship together as if they’d known each other all along.

Just like in real relationships, it is the small things in this movie that make the meaning really stick in your mind after sitting on the edge of your seat following a dramatic opening scene. The jokes between characters, a Popsicle offer that doesn’t make immediate sense until later in the film, a make out session in the back of a car repeated again later in the picture with a different set of characters. (Which after asking Peter during a press screening at The West, he noted wasn’t intentional, but a connection I made nonetheless.) Even the way that characters keep eye contact through dramatic moments, communicating with expression and intent that can get lost in the sweep of bigger budget movies demanding a homogenous product.

The elephant, grand piano and safe hanging over your heads by a dangling thread throughout the movie is the tension over faith.

Kelly Walker, who plays girlfriend Zoe to Ryan Garcia’s J.T., enters the life of a group of filmmakers seemingly through chance – but the connections between the pair run deeper as the film goes on, and we learn horrible secrets behind Zoe and her extended family’s faith through their beliefs in Satanism. Zoe’s entrance comes at the same time J.T. and friends are attempting to sell a pilot, and events transpire in such a way it is difficult not to see a “cosmic connection” in the offing that works for the story. The good vs. evil conflict at the heart of the film and subsequent action that ensues is the payoff for a buildup that you are forced to recognize that not all love stories end with a happily ever after.

But some do.

If I had additional thumbs, I would give it more than two and a suggestion that if it comes to a theater near you in the future to go see it. You can find out if it is via the Twin Tales of Terror tour underway.

Without a big marketing budget, Hyoguchi’s thrilling love story is making the rounds through small town America as he takes it on tour. His stop in Jesup at a drive-in brought enough moviegoers to get additional showings prior to the tour’s stop in Cedartown. The box office in Cedartown added two more weekends for The Occult as well, showing films like this are able to compete against big budget films like Snow White in ticket sales. J. Horton’s movie “A Hard Place” is also getting additional showings, but this weekend only.

You can see The Occult with Friday and Saturday night showings at 9 p.m. each night this weekend, April 18 and 19.

Check out ticket sales here for $7 a person.