Acolytes is a 2008 Australian horror and thriller film about three teenagers and their sudden involvement with murder and violence over the course of a dangerous week. It won awards at film festivals in Austin and Melbourne, including a tie for the Best Film of 2008 award at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival.. The film holds a 75% fresh rating with Rotten Tomatoes
Over the course of a week, the lives of three teenage friends will suddenly change. James Tresswick (Joshua Payne) and Mark Vincent (Sebastian Gregory) are teenagers in their final year of school and the victims of Gary Parker (Michael Dorman) who raped both them when they were younger. They still live in fear of him after he is released from prison for this crime.
A brain damaged teenage girl named Tanya who has gone missing is run down by a car and killed while walking in a pine forest. Later, wandering alone in a the forest, Mark secretly witnesses a man (Joel Edgerton) burying a body. The two friends decide to go dig up the grave to see what was buried, bringing along James' girlfriend Chasely (Hanna Mangan-Lawrence). To their horror, they partly uncover the body of a young girl and beside her is a small Canadian flag, implying she is a Canadian backpacker.
Plot
James Tresswick and Mark Vincent are victims of a brutal bully Gary Parker who has maltreated both boys, marking their bodies and spoiling their young lives. In their last year of high school, James and Mark find a way to stop being victims. They're going to kill Gary; Wandering alone around an isolated forest - the suspected site of the disappearance of a local girl - 17 year old Mark strays upon an adult male filling in a trench. It's suspicious and tantalizing. Mark returns with his friend James and Chasley Keys and they bring shovels to exhume what will probably be rotting garbage or someone's dead pet - or so they tell themselves. They find the ghostly white body of a woman. She's a tourist - a Canadian backpacker. The "trench" is a grave. The "adult male" is her killer. And they've got him by the balls. Responding to Mark's intimations James floats an idea to seek out "the sicko". It'll be a bit of fun. He's confident the guy lives in their suburb; Mark saw his car parked on a trail; Mark knows what the car looks like; Mark knows what he looks like. It can be done. Chasely goes along with it. No surprise. James has done all her thinking since they started a relationship. Mark agrees because he's got a thing for Chasely and he'd like to appear a bit more like her boyfriend, but mostly Mark agrees because he carries a culpable secret. They find the car and the killer 24 hours later. He's got the same house as everyone else and a kid and a wife. Jeez, it's anticlimactic. Then, in Chasely's bedroom, as the girl cleans up the latest damage done to Mark's face by an animal called Gary Parker, James floats another idea; What if the killer were contacted and told the name of a guy that they'd like to see dropped in a hole of his own? He's their secret, isn't he? They kind of own him, don't they? If he thinks they might let him go he'd do anything, wouldn't he? What could go wrong? James, Mark and Chasley are about to cross a line of no return as serial killer Ian Wright lures the vulnerable teenagers into his violent world.
Keywords: bare-chested-male, bathtub, boxer-shorts, duct-tape-gag, female-bare-foot, female-nudity, gagged, handcuffed-behind-back, handcuffed-woman, handcuffs
Nothing stays buried forever.
[Music: Sorceron and Ellyllon, Lyrics: Sorceron]
The kingdom of heaven is foundering
A foulness to the race of man
Where they worship in the lands of the north
Where elder gods still lie in slumber
In the dim light behold the vengeance
Of the infinite abyss
Their seasons
Their blood
There is nothing but reservoirs of darkness
Their seasons
Their blood
There is nothing
Rise
Stricken with fear and repent
Rise
Stricken with fear
The darkest clouds form an alliance
They're pounding away at the dawn
(rise)
Where the cold waters tread fear
The kingdom of heaven is foundering
A foulness to the race of man
The blackest of tides is rising
Storming across the heavens
In the dim light behold the vengeance
Of the infinite abyss
Divine diseases
Ailments of infinity
Dwells no part of empyrean virtue
I bid you haste
Their seasons
Their blood
There is nothing but reservoirs of darkness
Their seasons
Their blood
There is nothing
Rise
Stricken with fear and repent
Rise
Stricken with fear
The darkest clouds form an alliance
They're pounding away at the dawn
(rise)