Sator (film)

Nani, who has dementia, believes a supernatural entity called Sator speaks to her and compels her to record its wisdom in automatic writing. Her daughter mysteriously vanishes on the day Nani's husband dies. Nani’s grandson Adam, who also admits to hearing voices, lives in his dead grandfather's isolated cabin and searches for Sator. By day he explores the surrounding woods with his dog, and at night he reviews footage from a deercam installed near the cabin. Adam's sister Deborah tries to manage the family's affairs from afar, while his brother Pete occasionally visits and reflects with the mostly silent Adam on their strange experiences.

Adam begins to hear noises in his cabin, and one night his dog runs out and disappears. Pete's friend Evie visits the cabin, bringing an old photo album that she found in Nani's house. As Evie talks, Adam looks through the album and sees a picture of his mother. He enters a fugue state where his mother, with a shaven head and dressed in fur and a deer skull, tells him that "what can't be seen in the darkness can be shown in the light." The next day, Pete visits and tells Adam that he thinks their grandfather, with Nani's help, sacrificed himself to allow their mother to be with Sator.

Continuing to look through the photo album, Adam remembers a birthday with his family where everyone avoided his mother because of her strange behavior. She too heard Sator and undertook automatic writing. His memories are interrupted by sounds in the woods. Investigating, he finds Evie tied to a tree. He frees her, and when she recognizes him, she is terrified. Adam feels compelled to choke her. Evie runs away but Adam sees her suddenly sucked into the sky.

Back in the cabin, reflecting on the vision of his mother, Adam lightens the deercam image and sees that figures in animal skins and skulls are standing in the darkness between trees. Several of these figures enter Adam’s cabin. He flees to a nearby cave and is compelled inside. He sees a figure in fur and bones that points at him.

Several months later, Pete has just been released from a mental institution. He is picked up by Deborah, and he expresses regret at Adam's isolation. Deborah reminds him that Adam needed to be isolated because "it wasn't exactly safe for him to be around us." Nevertheless, Pete revisits Adam at the cabin. He sits on a sofa, and suddenly sees Evie sitting in front of him. Adam appears from behind, stabs Pete in his throat, and burns his face in the fireplace. As the body burns, Adam levitates in the background.

That night at Nani's house, Deborah sees Nani laughing and talking with an unseen figure. Nani disappears and Deborah searches for her outside. There she suddenly encounters Adam, who has a shaved head. He chokes her unconscious, and Evie pours gasoline on Deborah. They burn her alive. Sator disciples gather around the fire.

Adam reenters the house, where he walks past a room where he sees his bald mother sitting silently with his dog. Adam joins Nani in a different room where she sits with another Sator disciple.

• Michael Daniel as Pete
• Rachel Johnson as Evie
• Aurora Lowe as Deborah
• Gabriel Nicholson as Adam
• June Peterson as Nani

Principal photography took place in Santa Cruz, California and the Yosemite National Park.^[5] The film was in post-production for almost six years due to the solo work and budget limits of director Jordan Graham, who also built the cabin that was used in the film.^[6] June Peterson, who plays Nani in the film, is Graham's grandmother, and her belief in a supernatural being called Sator which watches over her formed the basis of the film's story.^[7]