Horror Movie Review: Sister Tempest (2020)

Writer/director Joe Badon’s debut feature film, The God Inside My Ear was a trippy, hypnotic experience that had elements of David Lynch in it as it blended surrealism with psychological horror. It was a very unique and interesting movie that we thoroughly enjoyed (read our review here).

Sister Tempest sees Badon outdo himself in the strange department resulting a film that is stylish as hell but lacks some of the substance seen in his previous work.

It stars Kali Russell as Ann Hutchinson who is facing a cosmic court and asked to recant the events around the disappearance of her younger sister, Karen played by Holly Bonney. Through flashbacks and more, way more, we learn all about Ann and her unusual past.

She is a teacher at a private art school for girls where a strange new student has just joined. Named Ginger Breadman and played by Linnea Gregg, she and Ann have a strange relationship that develops into something more sinister as the movie goes on. Just who is Ginger and what actually happened to Ann’s sister Karen?

Answers that will and won’t be given throughout the madness that is Sister Tempest. A 2-hour film that challenges and baffles in equal amounts. It’s so crazy, you can’t help but admire it and admire Joe Badon for his imagination.

The plot is there but not really the focus. See it more as the first strands of a spider’s web. There to hold the structure in place as the spider (in this case, the film) jumps from point to point filling in the gaps with seemingly no sense. It’s infuriating but mesmerising at the same time, Sister Tempest is not a film you’ll forget anytime soon.

This is a film where critiquing acting, effects, lighting and sound just isn’t that important, thanks to just how surreal the experience is. Anytime something seems off; an awkwardly delivered line, a cheap looking effect, sharp neon-style colours and so on, it seems like it was done on purpose. As though, Sister Tempest couldn’t have been any other way.