The Calling

The Calling is a 2014 Canadian crime thriller film adapted from the 2008 novel of the same name by Michael Redhill (published under the pen name Inger Ash Wolfe). The film stars Susan Sarandon, Gil Bellows, Ellen Burstyn, Topher Grace, Donald Sutherland, and Christopher Heyerdahl. Plot Inspector Hazel Micallef (Susan Sarandon) is a police officer in the small Ontario town of Fort Dundas. She is called to check in on elderly Delia Chandler and finds the woman nearly decapitated in her living room. Chandler's mouth is twisted as if she was screaming. The police encounter another gruesome murder where a man's stomach has been fed to some dogs. His face was also twisted into a scream. After a third murder, the police come to believe they are dealing with a serial killer. They discover that the mouths have been positioned to form the syllables of the word "Líbera". Micallef consults Father Price (Donald Sutherland), a priest in the nearby Catholic church who specializes in Latin. Price explains the various meanings and uses of "libera", including a "Resurrection Prayer", which supposedly holds the power to raise the dead. He claims that Jesus was resurrected through the sacrifice of 12 willing souls. Micallef deduces that the serial killer she is pursuing is contorting his victims' faces into the 12 syllables of the Resurrection Prayer. Micallef's deputy, Ben Wingate (Topher Grace), uses his mother's travel points to fly to British Columbia to follow a lead from the Delia Chandler killing. He finds a woman at a trailer in the middle of the forest and learns that she is delivering gifts from "the disciples" and begs him not to enter the trailer. Inside, Wingate discovers more packages and a body wrapped in formaldehyde-soaked bandages.