Deus Irae

The setting is born from a nuclear war that began in 1982, leaving fallout, mutations, and ruined infrastructure in its wake. Communities fuse around competing belief systems, especially the Servants of Wrath, who wield mystic artifacts and visions as stand-ins for lost certainties. The pilgrimage across a ravaged landscape becomes a search for truth and meaning in a world where memory competes with myth.

Charlottesville, Utah sits at the center of a post-war landscape where the Servants of Wrath confront dwindling Christian survivors. The world expands along a brutal highway from Wyoming to California, turning travel into a test of faith and endurance. With communications collapsed and radiation scars everywhere, daily life anchors on relics, rumors, and ritual.

🙏 Faith vs Wrath

Faith is reframed as a force of wrath that tests communities and individuals. The Servants of Wrath argue that suffering reveals truth, while traditional believers mourn the loss of mercy. Through the mural, relics, and visions, the film probes whether devotion can sustain a broken society or fuel dogmatic power. The clash of belief systems drives the social tension that propels the narrative.

🧭 Memory and Myth

Memory becomes a manipulable artifact, capable of becoming truth or faith depending on who preserves it. The shirt relic and the imagined face of Lufteufel show how tokens can acquire sacred authority beyond unreliable memories. The film blurs the line between what happened and what people tell themselves happened, guiding rituals and communal identity.

🎨 Art as Religion

The mural McMasters paints becomes a contested talisman around which faith centers. Art acts as a catalyst for belief and social order, sometimes more persuasive than sermons or scripture. The process of selecting a model and depicting Lufteufel exposes how narrative and imagery sculpt devotion in a devastated world.