Brimstone 2017

Revelation

Elizabeth “Liz” Brundy lives in the Old West as a midwife who can hear but is mute, communicating through sign language. She shares a quiet, tense life with her husband Eli and their two children, Matthew (Eli’s son from a previous marriage) and Samantha, called Sam. The arrival of a new preacher, known simply as “The Reverend,” unsettles Liz the moment she hears his voice; there is something terrifying about his presence that she cannot ignore. When a difficult birth arrives, Liz faces a gut-wrenching choice: deliver the baby safely and risk the mother’s life, or euthanize the baby to save the mother. She chooses the latter, a decision she keeps to herself, and the consequences ripple through the family.

Afterward, the bereaved husband Nathan accuses Liz of murder, blaming her for his son’s death. The Reverend appears in Eli’s home and presses Liz with a chilling claim—that she is guilty and must be punished. The confrontation is overheard by Eli, who then realizes something sinister is afoot. The Reverend’s influence darkens the town as Liz’s livestock—her sheep—are found dead the next day, deepening Eli’s suspicion and fear. Liz, haunted and hunted, slips out during the night with her children, seeking safety away from the Reverend’s growing cruelty. The Reverend’s malevolent presence grows more intimate and violent: he disembowels Eli and leaves him to die, a brutal act that forces Liz to confront the depths of the threat against her family. Before dying, Eli urges Matthew to carry the family toward the mountains, seeking a last, merciful path through the wilderness. Liz and the children flee, the shadows of the Reverend looming over their every step as they head toward an uncertain future.

Exodus

A girl named Joanna traverses a harsh desert landscape, rescued and cared for by a traveling Chinese family. Her journey leads her to Bismuth, a mining town where she is sold into a brothel run by Frank. Within this rough world, Joanna is protected by Sally, a fellow prostitute, until Sally is hanged for killing a violent client. Another prostitute, Elizabeth, then becomes Joanna’s protector in the wake of Sally’s death. A brutal punishment follows when Elizabeth wounds a cruel customer, and his tongue is cut off in retaliation. Joanna teaches Elizabeth sign language from a book the local doctor provided, forming a fragile bond between them.

Elizabeth begins to dream of a different fate: she plans to slip away from Bismuth and start anew, arranging a marriage through a broker to marry Eli. The Reverend arrives at the brothel, identifies Joanna, and subjects her to violent abuse. Elizabeth acts to save Joanna, but the Reverend murders Elizabeth in retaliation, with Joanna slashing the preacher’s throat in defense. In the aftermath, Joanna runs away, cuts out her own tongue, and steps into Elizabeth’s place with Eli, becoming the woman who will carry her trauma forward into a new life.

Genesis

In the desert, two desperate men, Samuel and Wolf, are the last survivors after a deadly dispute over gold takes lives across the group. They press on together, sharing a single horse as they move toward an uncertain horizon. Meanwhile, Joanna lives with her mother Anna and her father, who is revealed to be the Reverend himself, a man of rigid piety and harsh cruelty who lords his authority over his family. Joanna quietly tends to Samuel and Wolf when they reach their farm, nursing them back to some strength despite their grave injuries. Anna confronts the Reverend when she realizes his lust for their daughter, and he retaliates with merciless brutality—placing a scold’s bridle on Anna’s head in front of the church congregation. In a devastating moment, Anna commits suicide, a stark act that shatters the family’s sense of safety.

The following day, the Reverend drags Joanna to church for a wedding ceremony intended to bind him to his daughter by blood. Samuel tries to intervene and rescue Joanna, but the Reverend murders him. The man who preaches so well of piety turns to brutal control, whipping Joanna and forcing a rape, and when morning comes, Joanna runs from the house, clutching a fragile hope of escape.

Retribution

The final act follows Liz as tragedy and violence collide with a desperate bid for protection. Matthew is shot by the Reverend during a pursuit that takes Liz toward her father-in-law’s mountain refuge. The Reverend kills Liz’s father-in-law and declares his intent to beat and rape her daughter, pushing Liz to a breaking point: she murders him in a moment of cold, lucid resolve. Time passes, and Liz’s life evolves into a makeshift sawmill at Eli’s former home, a grim symbol of survival forged from necessity.

Nathan, the husband who had once blamed Liz, arrives with orders to arrest her. He is no longer just a judge of Liz’s actions; the Reverend had sent him to Bismuth where he rose to deputy and eventually sheriff. Nathan discovers a wanted poster of Elizabeth Brundy—“the woman without a tongue who killed Frank before she saved Liz/Joanna”—and he travels to claim Liz, now a figure who haunts both past and present. As they move toward the ferry that will take Liz away, she casts a final glance at her daughter Sam, who stands on the shore with her own child, a living memory of the mother she once knew.

In a quiet, sorrowful ending, Liz throws herself into the lake, choosing to drown rather than be captured. The film’s last image lingers on Sam’s present life, a grown woman who carries the memory of her mother—the complexity of love, violence, and survival imprinted on her years and on the family she has built. The narrative’s non-linear structure ties the acts together, showing how each fragment of Liz, Joanna, and the Reverend’s lives intersects across time to form a single, haunting story about the price of faith, power, and the will to endure.