L ATIMES.COM/CALENDAR FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 2019E5
Every Sunday, we
turn big spenders
into big savers.
Lookforgreat deals from these
top brands in this Sunday’s Times:Toadvertise,call1.800 LA TIMES
By advertiser request, not all inserts will be distributed to all zones. 12BR963LAA6096852-1Lookfor great deals from
these top brands in this
Sunday’sTimes:
HugeOperating ModelRailroa ds!
Hundredsof Tables ofTrains For Sale
in all Scales and Sizes
Free DoorPrizes andDem onstrations!Fairplex-UseGa te9
1101WMcKinleyDriv e Pomona,CA91768
Sat.&Sun.,August10- 11,10 am - 4pm
Save$1withDiscountCodeN11 Visit
TrainSho w.com/P omonaHuge Outdoor Garden Railroad
THE GOLDEN STATE.
DELIVERED.
Sign up for the free Los Angeles Times
Essential California newsletter.newsletters.latimes.com
On or off the
Strip, we’ve got
you covered.
Get the latest with
the new L.A. Times
Vegas newsletter.
Sign up today at
newsletters.latimes.com
AT THE MOVIES
“Them That Follow,” the
Appalachia-set drama
about a snake-handling
Pentecostal church, fea-
tures several skin-crawling
scenes of rattlesnakes slith-
ering across congregants’
torsos in a bid to prove God’s
favor.
To get bitten means to be
cast out by both God and the
community. Of course, even-
tually someone gets bitten.
But that doesn’t mean the
actors were in danger.
“You never actually see
the bite and if you do, it’s a
fake snake or it’s CGI or
something like that,” said
Jules Sylvester, a snake
wrangler and herpetologist
with more than 330 films
under his belt. “Or it’s a
strike on a fake arm. And by
the time you put it together
it looks really graphic. It’s
movie magic at its finest.”
The film, now playing in lim-
ited release and starring Al-
ice Englert, Walton Goggins,
Olivia Colman, Thomas
Mann and Kaitlyn Dever, re-
volves around a secluded
Appalachian community, an
unusual religious sect and
an extreme act of faith. Di-
rectors Dan Madison Sav-
age and Britt Poulton,
though not members of such
a church themselves, say the
story hits close to home.
“As a queer person, I
think I’m really drawn to sto-
ries about misunderstood
people,” said Savage. “And I
really can’t think of anyone
that’s more misunderstood
than Pentecostal snake han-
dlers.”
“What initially lit the fire
in my belly and pushed me
forward in exploring this
story was really my own rela-
tionship to religion,” said
Poulton, who grew up in a
Mormon community.
“Growing up in a religious
home and community
wasn’t easy for me. Every
choice I made, every need I
tried to satiate, I had to not
only consider repercussions
for myself but for my soul.
And that’s a lot of pressure
to put on a young person and
certainly something I really
struggled under.”
Similarly, the film follows
along as the pastor’s daugh-
ter (Englert) is forced to
choose between her faith
and her heart after falling in
love with a man (Mann) who
has turned his back on the
church.
“I was interested in ex-
ploring through our film this
journey of a young woman
who grows up despite these
constraints,” said Poulton.
“Who has to reconcile faith
and doubt, knowledge, in-
stincts, this life and the next,
all to come of age. That’s
what I really connected to.”
The directors, who also
wrote the script, had to do
considerable research to get
the story right. “We watched
all the documentaries, read
all of the books and then we
sort of let it go because at the
end of the day, this is a fic-
tional film,” said Savage.
“It’s a fictionalized account
of one church inspired by the
very real practices that still
occur today throughout the
southern United States.”Bearing witness
Shooting took place in
Ohio, where the directors
managed to sit in on a Pen-
tecostal church service, al-
beit a snake-less one.
“Even though they
weren’t snake-handling
churches, it’s important to
know that snake-handling
is just an escalation of
Pentecostalism,” said Poul-
ton. “What Pentecostal
churches and snake-han-
dling churches have in com-
mon are so many things
from speaking in tongues to
faith healing. And it’s really,
really powerful to be able to
witness people live their re-
lationship with the divine
out loud.”
While Christian mytholo-
gy has long cast snakes as
being a symbol the devil,
Pentecostal snake-wran-
gling churches take their cue
from the book of Mark, inwhich the faithful are said to
be safe in the face of danger-
ous serpents.
“The father of snake-han-
dling, George Hensley, he in-
terpreted the word ‘serpent’
to mean poisonous snake,”
said Poulton. “And for him,
that meant a true test of the
faithful was to confront a
deadly being, hold it in your
hands without fear and with
absolute faith and know that
you would come out on the
other side. So their perspec-
tive is very literal.”
“Picking up that snake is
submitting yourself to the
divine will, for better or for
worse,” added Savage.
Though the bites were
fake, the snakes were most
definitely real. Altogether,
Sylvester says he brought
about 14 snakes with him for
the film including rattlers,
pythons, rat snakes and car-
pet snakes. “And another
one that no one really knows
what kind of snake it is, but it
looks scary,” he said. “They
all looked really scary.”
While the actors may not
have been in any imminent
danger, they did have to get
pretty cozy with the reptiles
during filming.
“There’s always a little bit
of trepidation when you’re
dealing with snakes,”
Sylvester said. “But they’ve
been hand raised by me and
I’ve had them for years so
they’re quite [amenable] to
being handled. After about
10 minutes all of a sudden
[the actors] are really com-fortable with the snakes,
and by the end of the shoot
they’re quite enamored of
the snakes completely.”
Goggins, who plays pas-
tor Lemuel Childs in the
film, had to work most inti-
mately with the snakes and
by extension, Sylvester. “I
showed him how to pick up
the snake and how to hold it
properly without gripping it
and let him know that the
snake is not out to hurt him,”
Sylvester said. “I told him,
‘You’re a tree, you’re a tree,
you’re a tree. Just act like the
branch of a tree.’ ”
The 68-year-old got his
start as a herpetologist in
1966 wrangling snakes for
the Nairobi National Muse-
um at the tender age of 16. In-
cidentally, it was also his
first brush with the serpents
after he encountered one
during a run.
“I lived right next door to
the Nairobi snake park,” he
recalled. “And there was like
a 14-foot python on the bed
of the Nairobi river all curled
up. I said, ‘Hey, there’s a big
snake down there!’ And this
guy comes on a motorcycle,
slid down the bank and lept
up on this python. And I
thought that was the most
incredible job, and he actu-
ally got paid for doing that! I
really wanted that job very,
very badly so I volunteered
and they actually gave me a
job.”
After holding the posi-
tion for the next few years,
Sylvester said he quickly re-alized he knew more about
snakes than anyone else in
Nairobi. "[Since then] I’ve
spent half my life just wan-
dering around the bush
looking for snakes.”
“He has the most inter-
esting life, the most interest-
ing stories,” Poulton said of
Sylvester. “What was most
important for Dan and I as
animal lovers was working
with somebody that we
trusted to make the first and
last priority the animals and
their health and safety. And
after meeting with Jules, we
felt like we were in the very
best of hands. He is ex-
tremely knowledgeable, has
a lifetime of experience and
we knew that our animals
would be safe with him.”Animal charmer
Sylvester has wrangled
everything from snakes and
spiders to cockroaches to
flies on films including “Ju-
rassic Park,” “Godzilla,” “In-
diana Jones and the King-
dom of the Crystal Skull,”
“Casino Royale” and
“Hook.” Among his favorite
experiences were the Frank
Marshall films “Congo” and
“Arachnophobia,” and more
recently, 2006’s “Snakes on a
Plane” starring Samuel L.
Jackson.
“We had so much fun on
that set,” said Sylvester.
“Samuel Jackson is just bril-
liant. His agent was pretty
nervous about him getting
bitten by a snake. But he was
actually quite comfortablewith the snakes, he was very
good with them. I had prob-
ably 350 snakes [on that set],
it was just wonderful.”
For this project,
Sylvester was the first per-
son attached, even before
any of the actors. “I emailed
Jules on a whim and thus be-
gan our many years-long
correspondence about both
the creative and practical
and safety aspects of work-
ing with these animals,” Sav-
age said. “And he was a won-
derful asset to have on set
both personally, profession-
ally and even creatively help-
ing us bring our vision of
Pentecostal snake-handling
to life.”
“But even Jules with all of
his wisdom and charm
couldn’t prepare us for being
confronted with real, live rat-
tlesnakes,” said Poulton. “Of
course the actors never han-
dled dangerous or ven-
omous snakes but we did
shoot with real rattlesnakes.
And I have to tell you — I’m
not scared of snakes, and in
fact I love reptiles — but to
hear a rattlesnake’s rattle,
it’s a visceral, primal reac-
tion. Your body goes into
fight or flight, and it’s like
nothing I’ve ever experi-
enced.
“Even though I knew
there was a piece of glass be-
tween me and certain death,
I really truly lost my breath
and for the first time really
understood what snake han-
dlers must go through each
and every Sunday.”Expert touch in snake-handling drama
‘Them That Follow’
creators and a veteran
animal wrangler share
secrets from the set of
religion-centric film.
By Sonaiya Kelley
WALTON GOGGINSplays a snake-handling pastor and Thomas Mann is a young man who has left the church in “Them That Follow.”1091 Media