«VIATICUM» by Derek Frey

A priest, a nurse, a dying father… and a final supper with barbecue sauce.
What could possibly go wrong?

In Viaticum, director Derek Frey delivers a masterclass in black comedy, crafting a tightly wound chamber piece where faith, guilt, and absurdity collide in the most unexpected of sacraments.

Set in a somber Pennsylvania home and filmed in crisp black and white, the film opens on the threshold of death: Albert Lewis (Gil Damon) is dying, and his son Jason (David Amadio) —an aspiring saucier—has invited a priest to perform the Last Rites. But when Albert confesses to a decades-old murder, what begins as a solemn ritual quickly spirals into a darkly comic debate between Father Kettinger (Steve Kuzmick) and the no-nonsense hospice nurse Regina. Should the Church grant absolution to an unpunished killer? And can communion still be sacred when it’s dipped in barbecue sauce?

Navigating these moral contradictions with dry, stylized wit, Viaticum cleverly walks the tightrope between the sacred and the profane. The film is a pointed meditation on the ambiguity of sin, the institutional limits of forgiveness, and the strange rituals we cling to when facing the void.

Frey’s direction is visually spare but rich in texture, evoking the spiritual unease of Wild Strawberries with a distinctly American Gothic flair. The cinematography subtly nods to the haunting stillness of Andrew Wyeth’s work, grounding the existential drama in real, weathered landscapes. At the same time, the film’s deadpan pacing and sudden tonal pivots recall the Coen Brothers at their most philosophical (Blood Simple comes to mind), where violence and redemption share the same breath.

The cast delivers razor-sharp performances across the board, balancing the grotesque with the human. What might easily slip into parody is instead elevated into something more uncomfortable—and more honest. This is comedy as provocation, satire as soul-searching.

Viaticum doesn’t offer easy answers. Instead, it invites us to linger in the grey area—between life and death, guilt and grace, ceremony and farce. And in that space, it finds a strangely moving truth: sometimes the road to redemption needs a little seasoning.