In Director Taylor Paur’s By His Hand, a woman desperately attempts to break free from the only world she has ever known, with eye-opening consequences. Emma (Ryann Bailey) has spent her entire life inside a fundamentalist cult run by a man named Fowler (Steve Luna), who is her “husband.” It’s all she’s ever known — the rules, the rituals, the people who live under his control. One night, a meeting is called. Everyone carries a look of quiet guilt, like they all know something is wrong but won’t say it out loud. What happens that night pushes Emma past her breaking point. After enduring a final act of humiliation at the hands of Fowler, she makes a decision she can’t take back — she’s leaving.
Knowing little of the outside world, Emma turns to Sam (Chase Ramsey), a fellow member, and Sam agrees to help her escape. Sam is not exactly Fowler’s favorite and decides this is his chance to escape as well. Sam knows of a former member, Joshua, who broke free from the group some time ago and promised to help if he ever decided to leave. But Fowler isn’t the kind of man who lets people go. In Terminator-like fashion, he comes after them. Everywhere Sam and Emma stop, Fowler eventually shows up — and anyone who helped them along the way becomes an example of what happens when you cross him.
Brothers Taylor, Ethan, and Conor Paur drew from their own upbringing to tell Emma’s story. Having been raised in the LDS Church, the filmmakers brought personal understanding to the world they built around Fowler’s fundamentalist sect. By His Hand is not an indictment of religion, but rather an empathetic look at what happens to a person’s identity when molded and shaped by someone else’s rules. The themes of identity, control, and the long and painful process of rebuilding a life are at the heart of the film.
Emma – Ryann Bailey
“Emma has spent her entire life inside a fundamentalist cult run by a man named Fowler, who is her ‘husband.'”
By His Hand is not your typical cult leader thriller. Yes, it starts with the familiar setup — a woman who grew up inside a fundamentalist sect, eventually becoming the cult leader’s wife, who finally decides to take her destiny into her own hands — though freedom turns out not to be so easy. Still, the filmmakers, drawing on their own personal experience, are careful not to openly take sides, even though… we know which side.
What makes it work is how real it feels. Ryann Bailey captures Emma’s desperate need for freedom in someone who has never actually tasted it. Fowler’s need to chase her down isn’t just a religious conviction — it’s selfish. It’s about control and pride. And yet both characters still share that same religious foundation, which complicates their dynamic rather than making it black-and-white. Sam sits somewhere in the middle, a man who finally sees the cult for what it is, only to find that seeing clearly doesn’t automatically make you the hero.
As a film, By His Hand is a slow-burn thriller, leisurely paced in a way that fits the story it’s telling. The low budget is noticeable — there are moments when a Hollywood production would go over-the-top, and this one simply keeps its story grounded. But that’s not really where the film’s strength lies anyway. The strength lies in the pursuit itself — the tension of being chased and the weight of what’s at stake if Fowler catches up.
By His Hand emphasizes story over spectacle, and under Taylor Paur’s direction, story wins. The best stories are grounded and address the themes at hand directly.
"…seeing clearly doesn't automatically make you the hero."
