A thriller where the insidious terror is…Reformed theology?

Okay, not quite. But in controversial writer/director Paul Schrader‘s latest film, it’s a question of if the light that one reverend preaches about is powerful enough to defeat the darkness.

First Reformed stars Ethan Hawke as a small town minister whose existential crisis of faith is deepened when he encounters a would-be environmental terrorist in his community. The pastor of a nearby megachurch (Cedric the Entertainer) also seems to have dubious motives and schemes of his own.

Schrader, the screenwriter of Martin Scorsese‘s descent-into-madness masterpiece Taxi Driver, has wrestled publicly with his own Reformed Christian tradition over the years, but this is the first time he’s finally made it so prominent in one of his avant garde films.

Co-starring Amanda Seyfried, First Reformed opens on May 18, 2018.