NPR

'Them That Follow' Is Not Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth

Great performances from Walton Goggins, Olivia Colman and others only underscore the by-the-numbers story and shallowly observed setting of this drama set in an Appalachian snake-handling church.
Alice Englert (center), Walton Goggins, and Olivia Colman star in this venomous tale of a snake-handling church community deep in the Appalachian mountains.

The "law of the instrument," sometimes referred to as "Maslow's hammer," is a theory of cognitive bias that's summed up in this useful expression: "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

In , a by-the-numbers indie drama about a community of snake-handlers in Appalachia, the phrase can be revised thusly: "If all you have is

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