Hooptober 12.0 – Moloch (2022)

Being Film #25 for Hooptober 2025

Sometimes tone is everything. Have I said that before? That’s the mental state I’m inhabiting this deep into Hooptober. Six days to go, six films to watch. Hopefully they all exhibit some of the grace and then of Moloch, a Dutch film that overcomes a convoluted story with a deep, deep sense of how people think and feel. I came into it not knowing what to expect, and the combination of cults, folklore (the two always found within the vicinity of the other) and dread made for a rewarding watch.

THE QUICK SUMMARY: 30 years ago Betriek cowered in the pantry as a horror took place upstairs above her. 30 years later and with a daughter of her own, Betriek and her parents have found a way to push the darkness away until the death of a man furiously digging in the woods and a savage attack in their home bring everything rushing back. Soon we’re up to our necks in family curses, cults, ritual murders and something whispering in the woods. Betriek frantically tries to understand what is happening before it consumes her and her daughter…but has it happened already?!?!

So many twists and backstory and legend and secrets spill out over the course of Moloch’s 99 minutes I thought I was smacking a cinematic piñata, showered with small nuggets of story I had no hope of consuming all at once. And since it took me three minutes of dazed (okay, slightly stoned) staring to come up with that last line, you understand why these last few reviews are going to be brief.

Here’s the thing to know about Moloch: it worked on me like gangbusters. The thing that writer/director Nico van den Brink does really well is convey the same sense of confusion and helplessness the characters do without it feeling overwrought or convoluted. As Betriek struggles to make sense of what she learns about the ancient legend of Feike, a poor woman who strikes a deal with a demon in a heroic act the town celebrates to this day, we feel that same sense of discovery, of revelation and – when the film’s inevitable twist occurs – despair that she does. Nine times out of ten this wouldn’t work, but credit to the whole team for making it feel real and intense.

Additional quick kudos to Sallie Harmsen as Betriek; she’s fantastic and a new discovery for me. All around great casting, a story that utilizes locations wonderfully so I don’t get distracted by obvious studio sets and one sequence that was so intense I crawled up into my seat all add up to a great experience in Moloch.