There are many different "styles" of horror. There is body horror, supernatural horror, Lovecraftian monster horror, and alien horror just to name a few, and there are many more.
I'm not sure that it actually has a horror category name, but there seems to be a variation of horror that's largely composed of "people behaving badly", for lack of a better name. Alcoholism, insanity, random emotional clawing going on any time more than one character is on the screen at once, constant bickering and squabbling, mutual distrust amongst all the characters, implied sexual derision, and just general, constant unpleasantness permeating every scene, are all hallmarks of this kind of horror.
You could remove all supernatural elements and the movie would still be an horrific viewing experience. It's practically nothing more than WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF with maybe some ghosts or witches or something, although you can't usually tell whether these supernatural elements aren't simply illusion (because of the insanity part...). Oh, and it's usually a requirement that everything be very dark, as in you have to watch it at night or you can't actually see anything on the screen because there's no light.
The experience of watching this movie is like a prolonged aversion conditioning session.
It is into this unpleasant category that THE BANISHING neatly falls.
To try to give the plot a little supernatural street cred, there is a setting back story where some perverted Christian cult was headquartered thereabouts who believed that torturing people cleansed them of sin and brought them closer to God. This (naturally) sort of saturated the house and surrounds with supernatural nastiness. Or something. This has the effect of driving people insane and separating loved ones one from another. This at least somewhat explains all the unpleasantly bad behavior amongst the characters; usually no explanation is given in this kind of movie.
We experience a red herring happy ending where the chief source of the "haunting and visions" is uncovered, and the bones of the wronged parties are given a "decent Christian burial".
And here I must confess a bit of confusion as I am not entirely certain that I understood the true ending. The newly consecrated and buried bones are dug up, some of them are placed in the small catacomb associated with the area, and some are carried off to Nazi Germany for some purpose not actually specified in the movie that I could detect. A comment is made to the effect that "our plan worked; the girl found the bones". Shortly after this the movie comes to an end.
In the entire movie, during one of the incessant arguments between characters, there was only one vague reference to the evil priest character having some connection to Nazis that I can recall. Beyond this, up until this ending scene, Nazis had not been involved.
I cannot speak with confidence, but I THINK this is to suggest that these bones were desired by the Nazis as part of their infamous occult obsessions, based upon what I see in this scene tied together with my coincidental arcane knowledge of this very subject. But I can't see how anyone without this background understanding would be able to understand this final scene at all, which would be a major hole in this movie in my opinion.
Personally, I'd recommend giving this movie a pass. Some people are giving THE BANISHING credit for being a subtle "slow burn", but it really isn't. It's just slow, exceptionally unpleasant to watch in a very self-flagellating sort of way, and sorely lacking in any entertainment value. Any sense of horror that you feel doesn't have anything to do with any supernatural entertainment; it's just natural discomfort at being in the presence of an entirely obnoxious collection of characters for the entire run time of the movie.
Lastly, I have absolutely no idea how the movie got the name THE BANISHING. Who was banished? Why were they banished? What banishing even happened to anyone?
I'm not sure that it actually has a horror category name, but there seems to be a variation of horror that's largely composed of "people behaving badly", for lack of a better name. Alcoholism, insanity, random emotional clawing going on any time more than one character is on the screen at once, constant bickering and squabbling, mutual distrust amongst all the characters, implied sexual derision, and just general, constant unpleasantness permeating every scene, are all hallmarks of this kind of horror.
You could remove all supernatural elements and the movie would still be an horrific viewing experience. It's practically nothing more than WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF with maybe some ghosts or witches or something, although you can't usually tell whether these supernatural elements aren't simply illusion (because of the insanity part...). Oh, and it's usually a requirement that everything be very dark, as in you have to watch it at night or you can't actually see anything on the screen because there's no light.
The experience of watching this movie is like a prolonged aversion conditioning session.
It is into this unpleasant category that THE BANISHING neatly falls.
To try to give the plot a little supernatural street cred, there is a setting back story where some perverted Christian cult was headquartered thereabouts who believed that torturing people cleansed them of sin and brought them closer to God. This (naturally) sort of saturated the house and surrounds with supernatural nastiness. Or something. This has the effect of driving people insane and separating loved ones one from another. This at least somewhat explains all the unpleasantly bad behavior amongst the characters; usually no explanation is given in this kind of movie.
We experience a red herring happy ending where the chief source of the "haunting and visions" is uncovered, and the bones of the wronged parties are given a "decent Christian burial".
And here I must confess a bit of confusion as I am not entirely certain that I understood the true ending. The newly consecrated and buried bones are dug up, some of them are placed in the small catacomb associated with the area, and some are carried off to Nazi Germany for some purpose not actually specified in the movie that I could detect. A comment is made to the effect that "our plan worked; the girl found the bones". Shortly after this the movie comes to an end.
In the entire movie, during one of the incessant arguments between characters, there was only one vague reference to the evil priest character having some connection to Nazis that I can recall. Beyond this, up until this ending scene, Nazis had not been involved.
I cannot speak with confidence, but I THINK this is to suggest that these bones were desired by the Nazis as part of their infamous occult obsessions, based upon what I see in this scene tied together with my coincidental arcane knowledge of this very subject. But I can't see how anyone without this background understanding would be able to understand this final scene at all, which would be a major hole in this movie in my opinion.
Personally, I'd recommend giving this movie a pass. Some people are giving THE BANISHING credit for being a subtle "slow burn", but it really isn't. It's just slow, exceptionally unpleasant to watch in a very self-flagellating sort of way, and sorely lacking in any entertainment value. Any sense of horror that you feel doesn't have anything to do with any supernatural entertainment; it's just natural discomfort at being in the presence of an entirely obnoxious collection of characters for the entire run time of the movie.
Lastly, I have absolutely no idea how the movie got the name THE BANISHING. Who was banished? Why were they banished? What banishing even happened to anyone?