THE SIN EATER (aka THE ORDER)

 

My official UK DVD of The Sin Eater (© Brian Helgeland/20^th Century Fox – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

The things that you learn from movies! Until I watched this present film on 8 May 2022, I was totally unaware of the extraordinary concept of sin eaters and the corresponding practice of sin-eating – the sin eater being a person who ritually eats a meal that has symbolically absorbed the sins of a recently-deceased person, and is thereby deemed to be carrying the sins of that person. Sin eaters who perform such rituals on a regular basis are thus believed to carry all of the sins of all of those recently-deceased persons, and as a consequence are generally feared and shunned by other people. From what I have since read about this fascinating religious folk-belief, it was formerly particularly prevalent in Wales and English/Welsh border counties, but in the fantasy/horror film under review here it is presented as a heretical practice in Roman Catholicism, and the film itself is set in Rome.

Directed, co-produced, and written by Brian Helgeland, and released by 20^th Century Fox in 2003, The Sin Eater (aka The Order) significantly extends the sin eater concept, via this movie's central premise that a person can actually circumvent the normal manner of ensuring that their soul goes to Heaven upon death (i.e. by living a good, sinless life). Instead, they can lead an evil, sinful life, but upon the point of death they then have all of their sins absorbed – literally eaten – by someone else, the appointed sin eater, after which they reach Heaven with a pure, sin-absolved soul, with the sin eater carrying the foul essence of their evil within himself instead.

The greatly-missed Heath Ledger, one of my favourite actors, stars in The Sin Eater as Father Alex Bernier, a member of the fictitious Carolingian Order of Roman Catholic priests whose speciality is confronting and overcoming evil supernatural entities on the Church's bidding. Alex is already questioning his own faith when he receives unexpected, highly disturbing news – Father Dominic (Francesco Carnelutti), his mentor and the Carolingian Order's head, has been found dead inside his Rome domicile. Moreover, his death is deemed suspicious, both by the police and (particularly) by the Church – so much so, in fact, that Alex is swiftly dispatched to Rome to investigate the incident by the eminent figure of Cardinal Driscoll (Peter Weller), a favourite to become the next Pope.

After arriving and examining Dominic's corpse at the morgue, Alex discovers strange markings upon it, which, when assisted in his investigations by fellow Carolingian priest and longstanding friend Father Thomas Garrett (Mark Addy), are revealed to be the signs that a sin eater places there during a sin-eating ritual. They also discover from his personal archive of ancient books and esoteric manuscripts that Dominic had been extensively involved in researching arcane, forbidden lore, which had ultimately led to his being ex-communicated by the Catholic Church.

After Cardinal Driscoll is informed of their findings, he personally visits Alex and Thomas in Rome, in order to present them with a sacred silver dagger specifically used for killing sin eaters when wielded while chanting an Aramaic incantation; once again they had learned all of this from Dominic's occult library.

So what happens now? SPOILER ALERT!! If you don't want to know, read no further!

To cut a very complex, convoluted story short (or relatively so!): Alex and Thomas visit a sinister masked figure dubbed the Black Pope holding court in hidden catacomb-like chambers beneath a night club, who extracts the information that they require, if they are to succeed in locating the sin eater, by the singularly diabolical method of hanging three captive prisoners there and listening to their last utterances before they die (the disconcerting notion being that those about to meet their deaths are privy to cryptic information not available to the living). When Alex and Thomas attempt to leave the Black Pope's obscene den of iniquity following this unholy, accursed ceremony, however, Thomas is attacked by a demon, but is rescued by Alex.

While Thomas recuperates in hospital, Alex finally tracks down and meets the sin eater – a young-looking man named William Eden (Benno Fürmann). In reality, however, Eden turns out to be several centuries old, his sin-eating activities having bestowed perpetual youth upon him ever since he willingly became a sin eater in the late 1500s, when still only a child, in order to ensure that the soul of his beloved older brother, a good man who had just been killed in an accident during the construction of the great dome of St Peter's basilica, would go to Heaven; a priest had vindictively excommunicated him some time previously for having mercifully saved the life of a prostitute.

Eden also informs Alex that Dominic had been dying and had therefore purposefully requested him to perform a sin-eating ritual, in order to cancel out the sins polluting Dominic's soul from his dabbling in the dark arts and other heretical activities that had earned his excommunication by the Church.

Now, however, Eden has grown tired of sin-eating, and weary of life itself, fervently seeking release, desiring his own death at long last, after attending and administering his soul-cleansing powers to those of so many persons down through the countless years, all of whom, with the sole exception of his brother, had been evil and did not deserve a route to Heaven but had paid him well to provide them with one. Eden pleads with Alex to stab him with the dagger as Alex had intended, thereby releasing Eden's own soul and freeing it at last from the heavy burden of sins absorbed from those of others – but Alex finds himself unable to do the necessary deed. However, he gains first-hand knowledge of what the sin-eating ritual entails, by assisting Eden as he performs it upon yet another dying person who has sought his services (and who like the numerous others before him is willing to pay him handsomely for them), another lifelong sinner anxious to rid his soul of the wickedness that it has accrued.

Afterwards, Alex departs, leaving a desperate Eden behind. So Eden murders a young woman, Mara (Shannyn Sossamon), with whom Alex has fallen in love and is planning to quit the priesthood to be with, but he makes it look as if she has committed suicide by slitting her wrists, then leaves her body to be found by a distraught Alex. As suicide is deemed a mortal sin by the Church, Alex conducts the sin-eating ritual upon Mara's newly-deceased body, so that her soul can enter Heaven – only to discover to his horror that none of the sins that he absorbs from her include the sin of suicide. Alex then realizes that Eden has murdered her, in order to goad Alex into taking revenge by killing him in return, which is exactly what Eden so eagerly craves, an end to his hitherto endless life.

Nevertheless, when Alex tracks Eden down again, his all-consuming desire to avenge Mara is too great to be denied, as is needed if he is to thwart Eden's plan, So Alex duly stabs him with the silver dagger while reading out the Aramaic incantation. Crucially, however, what Alex and Thomas had failed to discover while researching sin-eating was that when a sin eater is stabbed to death, all of his sin-eating powers and all of the sins that he has absorbed down through his immensely-extended life as a sin eater are directly transferred to whoever has killed him, transforming his killer into his replacement – i.e. becoming a new sin eater. So this is precisely what happens to Alex when he kills Eden. Eden is dead, but Alex is now a sin eater in his place, containing all of the sins that Eden had previously contained.

One other shattering discovery is also made – the identity of the evil Black Pope figure, who is exposed as being none other than Cardinal Driscoll! Alex swiftly makes this devastating fact public, instantly destroying Driscoll's entire career in the Church, let alone his chances of becoming Pope. Consequently, Driscoll chooses to commit suicide, and just before the point of death he commands Alex as the new sin eater to absorb all of his previous vile, foul sins, as well as his final sin of suicide, so that his absolved soul can go to Heaven – but Alex refuses. Instead of eating the ritual wafer containing Driscoll's host of absorbed sins, Alex rams it down Driscoll's throat, choking him, and thus condemning the soul of the terrified Cardinal to eternal infernal damnation.

The movie ends with Alex vowing to become a very different sin eater from his predecessor, Eden. Instead of absorbing the sins of evildoers and being paid very handsomely by them in return for his soul-purging actions (as Eden was), he will only perform the sin-eating ritual upon those who have led good lives but have been unjustly condemned by the Church, like Eden's brother had been.

The above summary is a greatly-simplified retelling of the storyline for The Sin Eater, whose many twists and turns kept me thoroughly engrossed throughout. Interestingly, neither Heath Ledger nor Benno Fürmann were the first choices to play their respective roles (Antonio Banderas and Vincent Cassel were). However, Ledger's performance as the disillusioned, unhappy priest Alex is riveting and Fürmann bestows upon his enigmatic sin eater Eden a captivating combination of serpentine charisma and genuine pathos. Moreover, the sickening acts perpetrated within the Black Pope's depraved subterranean realm are truly horrific.

Yet for me, the most chilling component of this fantasy/horror movie takes the form of two small children, a boy and a girl, who are first seen squatting on the floor just outside the main door of Dominic's dwelling at the beginning of the movie. These 'children' are playing a game on the ground in a lethargic, desultory manner, their heads slouched down, but when Dominic arrives they look up at him, revealing grey, otherworldly faces and black eyes that radiate palpable evil!

They are still there when Alex arrives after learning of Dominic's death, and he wonders out loud who – or what – spawned them, evidently suspecting them to be directly related to Dominic's occult experiments. Not long afterwards, moreover, he receives an affirmative response to his query when he encounters them again, this time at night in a graveyard, whereupon they transform into demonic entities who seek to attack him, but are warded off when he wields his crucifix in their direction.

Nor is that momentous event these terrifying twins' final appearance – but I'll leave you to discover that for yourself, if you watch this very engrossing and highly unusual, original movie, which I definitely recommend that you do.

To pay a brief visit to the unsettling but fascinating netherworld of The Sin Eater, be sure to click here in order to watch an official trailer for this macabre yet mesmerizing movie on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.