- Directed by Chad Crawford Kinkle
- Written by Chad Crawford Kinkle
- Stars Sean Bridgers, Lauren Ashley Carter, Kaitlin Cullum
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 21 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX6nmhH9yk0
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This one was great, even better than we expected. We step right into a full blown mini-religious that is fully influencing and controlling a community. But when strong-willed people have a mind of their own, clashes can happen. The casting, script, setting, everything was excellent. It’s one to check out for sure.
Synopsis
As credits roll, we get an animated segment showing human sacrifice near a big hole in the ground.
Jessaby and Ada chase each other through the woods. They roll around in the dirt and then have sex near a big hole in the ground. Ada tells Jessaby that his skin feels different. When Ada goes home, she’s told that she’s going to marry Bodey soon. She wants to go to the pit and pray about that.
Elsewhere, Dawai, a man making pottery, seems to be possessed; his eyes turn white.
Ada goes to Dawai’s shed and puts red paint on her underwear to fake a period. She sees that Dawai has fired a clay jug with a face on it. Is that her face? She buries it in the woods. Her mother points out that Ada’s period has come late this time. That night, everyone gets together and has a hoedown. Her brother, Jessaby, tells her not to tell Pa what they done, and he’ll deny it if she tells.
She tells her grandfather that she’s going to be the next jug face. She asks her father if the pit has ever taken a baby, and he responds that it has. The two of them go into town to sell some moonshine and buy a few things. Ada steals a pregnancy test.
Later, Dawai notices his jug face is missing, and right then, Ada has a weird vision. At the same time, something tears her friend Eileen apart. Dawai says the pit hasn’t spoken to him at all; there is no jug face this time. Dawai says he felt funny yesterday, but he must not have made a jug face, so it must not be the right time. When he makes a jug, he has no memory of doing it or who the face will be ahead of time.
It would appear that the pit randomly takes over Dawai to make a jug face of the next sacrificial victim. In return the pit will heal, guide, and protect. If they don’t do the ritual, the pit will just kill whoever it finds. By stealing the jug, Ada has screwed the whole community. Ada finds a jug of a baby in Dwight’s shed that he says he made a couple of weeks ago, but nobody’s got a baby right now. Ada tells him to just make another jug face of whoever comes to mind; he wonders what if he gets the wrong face?
Ada tells Jessaby about the baby. Dawai makes a new jug face, and this one is Bodey. As the whole community gathers, Bodey leans over the pit and Pa cuts his throat, spilling the blood into the hole. A spirit comes and tells her that Ada’s grandfather once hid a jug face as well. When the people found out, they poisoned him. It says that she needs to produce her jug and go through with it.
She starts to return the jug but then changes her mind. Jessaby is sick with a fever, but Pa says the pit will heal him. Jessaby climbs down into the hole, and it starts bubbling. Instead of healing him, it eats him. They demand to know why Dawai’s latest creation didn’t work when they obeyed and sacrificed Bodey. Dawai confesses he didn’t create that one from a vision. The community decides to kill Dawai in retaliation; the pit will choose a new potter.
Ada releases Dawai, and the two of them run off to town. They take some moonshine to the man in town for money, but Ada has another vision. Someone else back home has been taken into the pit. The man calls her Pa, and they come for her. They take them home, hang them from a rack, and whip them both. Still, they haven’t figured out who the jug face was for. She loses the baby, and finally does tell her parents whose baby it was.
The pit is hungry; it takes Pa. Ada comes clean and tells all. She shows them the jug face. They tie her and Dawai up right next to the pit. Night falls, and the spirit-boy comes to untie Ada. She chooses to stay so that Dawai can be spared; it’s what she should have done in the first place.
Morning comes, and the locals all congregate around the pit. They do the ritual, and they cut her throat, bleeding her into the hole. Dawai goes home with her jug. He puts it on the shelf with the others.
Commentary
The pit wants what the pit wants.
Living in the South looks like a lot of fun, doesn’t it? The incest angle is barely even mentioned in passing; that’s the most normal thing in this film. Really though, the pit probably isn’t the most unpleasant thing going on in this town.
This is really good. It’s a well-thought-out and more or less believable mythology. Ada’s mistake has real consequences, and it’s all pretty logical. All the performances are near-perfect, the cinematography, soundtrack, and everything else is great as well.
It’s really uniquely interesting. Very cool!