Robert Eggers’s film reminds us that much of what presents itself as common sense is just a contingent arrangement, one form of folklore instead of another.
Wes Craven says there are two types of horror stories: either the monster is out there, or the monster is us. Jennifer Kent's film has the moral imagination to tell both simultaneously.
Is exaggerated violence in Passion plays merely a product of our baser
natures? Or does the savagery actually have a proper place in the
crucifixion's meaning?