“You are no man of God,” a young Latino man named Valentín shouts from behind bars at a white man dressed as a minister in The Quarry. “You will burn in hell.” The unnamed and suspicious preacher he condemns is a fugitive who has wandered into a small Texas town. Up until this point, it seems as though this false prophet might have possibly found God while assuming the preacher’s identity—but now the unnamed man is letting Valentín go down for his crime. This scene, which takes place later in the film, is one of The Quarry’s more powerful. The false minister prays and breaks down in tears as Valentín condemns him, sealing their fates with sore words: “I will see you there.”
The Quarry is the newest feature by writer-director Scott Teems, who made his directorial debut with That Evening Sun (2009) and has written for TV in Rectify and Narcos: Mexico. Set to premiere at SXSW before its cancellation in March, The Quarry has skipped the film festival circuit and the theatrical release that would have taken place under normal circumstances. Instead, on April 17, Lionsgate released it on demand at every major retailer including AppleTV and Amazon Prime Video.
Based on a 1995 novel by Damon Galgut of the same name, The Quarry tells a dark morality tale of a nameless drifter and fugitive, played by Shea Whigham, who kills a minister he meets on the road in West Texas and then assumes his identity as the new reverend in a small town close to the Gulf only hours later. (Geography remains as questionable as the man’s true identity.) The result is an exploration of religious notions of accountability and a bleak tale of racism in the American criminal justice system. When the real minister’s body is eventually found in the nearby quarry but cannot be identified, the local drug dealer and petty thief Valentín is accused, while the main character watches and does nothing, consumed by guilt and under the ever suspicious eye of the police chief, played by Michael Shannon.
