Last Days

Nevill (The Ritual) pulls out all the stops in this audacious literary take on metafictional horror films like The Blair Witch Project. British filmmaker Kyle Freeman is on his last financial legs when he’s offered a deal that sounds too good to be true: £100,000 to help Max Solomon, publisher of the hot self-help book of the moment, make a documentary about a cult. In 1975, nine people were found dead at the headquarters of the Temple of the Last Days in an abandoned mine in Arizona. Among the corpses was Sister Katherine, the founder of the temple, beheaded at her own request. Freeman, who’s given a tight schedule to complete the project, soon gets the feeling that supernatural forces are at work—and that his producer has been less than forthcoming. Fans of films about haunted places, otherworldly beings, and rituals gone terribly wrong will find this homage deliciously chilling. (Feb.)