Mark H. Rapaport’s Godhead has plenty to say, but it’s not saying anything we haven’t already heard before.
Godhead centers on an unnamed priest (Al Warren), the spiritual anchor of a very small community. And as is tradition for this sort of film, he’s also a closeted pedophile who keeps a young boy (Luke Speakman) locked in his home.
One day, the delicate balance between the priest’s public and private life is threatened when a mysterious set of twins barges into his chapel and demands judgment. Identified only as Firstborn (Sarah Coffey) and Secondborn (Kimball Farley), they believe themselves to be the physical incarnation of the Holy Spirit.
Well… they believe one of them is the physical incarnation of the Holy Spirit. They need the priest to decide which sibling it is and murder them so they can ascend to their ultimate spiritual form. The priest thinks they’re delusional and refuses to participate, only to find the twins willing to upend his entire life to force his cooperation. And as the night drags on, the lines separating faith, delusion, and reality only blur.
Godhead struggles to conjure new ideas.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that Godhead is born out of a disillusionment with religion. That’s fine! I’ll take Godhead over God’s Not Dead any day. But it also doesn’t take an expert in ex-religious cinema to see that Godhead is struggling to break new ground.
Anyone who has seen three or four of these films will experience several instances of déjà vu. If you, like myself, happen to be involved in the independent film scene of an extremely religious community, then there’s a very good chance that you’ve seen (and quite possibly shot) a few of these scenes almost verbatim.
Godhead casts an extremely wide net in regards to theme, and the basic questions asked during a losing battle with faith are all covered. Is there a limit to redemption? What even is sin, anyways? How can a sinless divine hope to understand a fallen humanity, let alone care about it? Has divinity actually been inside us this entire time? Was Mormonism onto something? These questions are interesting. The answers are potentially meaningful. But here they are explored and re-explored through meandering bickering that never actually manages to say anything interesting, or say much of anything at all.
Mark H. Rapaport remains an exciting new talent.
It’s an interesting turn for writer/director Mark H. Rapaport, who made a splash at Fantasia Fest in 2023 with the one-of-a-kind Hippo. Hippo had no shortage of religious themes and also dealt with the topic of trauma, but it managed to do it as a psychosexual period piece that made good use of its black-and-white cinematography. Godhead still makes it clear that Rapaport has talent, but (some incest aside) it’s too broad to have any real bite.
To be fair to the cast, the performances here are quite good. Warren nails the moral ups and downs of the complicated protagonist. Sarah Coffey chews scenery with the gusto of an established character actor. And Kimball Farley, who shares a story credit with Mark H. Rapaport, does manage to make an extremely compelling case for how good Godhead could be if it had something original to say. But it doesn’t, which means the incredibly talented cast spends the better part of 100 minutes just loudly wandering around in circles.
The bottom line.
Interestingly enough, Godhead stops yelling for its final moments in an attempt at denouement. In doing so, it accidentally stumbles into some incredible poignancy. The closing sequence is absolutely fantastic. There’s a lesson to that, if we’re smart enough to take it. Whether you’re attempting to decipher meaning from the universe or unwrap the very real trauma that can accompany leaving faith behind, you’re only really going to start making progress when you actually take the time to listen.
Godhead played as part of Fantasia Fest 2026. Watch the trailer here.
Images courtesy of Kinematics.
REVIEW RATING
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Godhead - 5/10
5/10
Brogan Luke Bouwhuis is a writer and film programmer whose frequent pop culture deep dives have allowed him to write about everything from the Richard Gere gerbil rumor to the history of the holiday yule log video. He co-hosts the Franchise Fiends podcast, co-captains the narrative shorts program at the Slamdance Film Festival, and co-created three children with his wife, Jessica.
