This is part of our coverage of South by South West (SXSW) 2023.
Baal was once known as the king of gods. The ancient Canaanites called him the “Lord of Rain and Dew.” The Phoenicians, the “Lord of the Heavens.” The Israelites named him “He Who Rides the Clouds.” It was only after the Hebrew queen Jezebel tried to replace the official worship of the Hebrew God with the worship of Baal in the ninth century BCE that Baal became the emblem for a false god, a fallen angel, and later, the prince of demons himself: Satan.
But in the supernatural thriller Hail Mary, directed by Rosemary Rodriguez and written by Knate Lee, Baal (Jack Huston) arrives in Central America as the devil’s servant incarnate. While all powerful, he lacks autonomy. And he’s on his master’s mission to hunt down Maria (Natalia del Riego) before she makes her way from Belize to the United States to give birth to an infant who will someday save the world.
