Christopher Bickel is not a filmmaker interested in polish. He is interested in sweat, noise, and the intoxicating dirt that clings to the celluloid ghosts of exploitation cinema. With Pater Noster and the Mission of Light, his latest DIY descent into the grindhouse abyss, Bickel channels the cracked spirit of 1970s cult horror while infusing it with a distinctly contemporary awareness of obsession — musical, spiritual, and cinematic.
The hook is irresistible: Max, a record store clerk chasing the thrill of rare vinyl, stumbles upon an LP from a long-forgotten commune band called Mission of Light. What begins as crate-digging curiosity spirals into something altogether darker, as Max and her friends trace the record’s origins to a secluded cult whose rituals are soaked in both blood and distortion. Before long, the chiming folk harmonies become incantations, the needle-drop becomes a curse, and the grooves themselves seem to open onto a world of psychedelic terror.
Bickel, whose underground reputation was forged on unapologetically abrasive, micro-budget projects, makes no effort to hide the seams. In fact, the seams are the point: a stitched-together tapestry of lurid colour, stroboscopic editing, and gory practical effects that recall the handmade ferocity of vintage splatter cinema. The budget is meager, but the imagination is unruly. When the film tilts fully into ritual bloodletting and cosmic chaos, it achieves the kind of unhinged sensory overload that expensive horror often can’t touch.
What’s most surprising, though, is the music. The filmmakers wrote and recorded a full album in the guise of Mission of Light, and its jangling, upbeat folk tunes — deceptively sunny, unnervingly catchy — weave through the film like a viral infection. Their recurrence creates a peculiar dissonance: the music seems to gnaw at the edges of the viewer’s mind, becoming both a nostalgic echo of 1970s counterculture and a sinister tool of indoctrination. By the time the cult’s rituals are in full swing, the songs are inseparable from the horror, leaving the audience haunted by melodies as much as imagery.
For all its disjointedness — the pacing takes time to find its grip, and some performances verge on pastiche — the film exerts a strange cumulative power. It sneaks up on you, wearing you down with repetition and atmosphere until its final stretches feel like an outright possession. It is less a film you watch than one you are slowly, insidiously absorbed into.
The Prognosis:
Pater Noster and the Mission of Light is not for everyone. Its rough edges are sharp, its indulgence in retro exploitation tropes unapologetic. But within SUFF’s lineup, it is precisely the kind of discovery audiences come to this festival for: a work made with passion, sweat, and delirious creativity, chewing through its limitations to deliver something singular. Bickel has crafted a nightmare that’s equal parts grindhouse revival, cult exposé, and vinyl collector’s hallucination — a low-budget hymn that worms its way into your soul, humming as it feeds.
- Saul Muerte
Surgeons of Horror 