Many critics have pointed out the film's incorporation of various religious and mythological themes and events from Christian, Celtic, and Slavic mythology including various Creation myths, Mother Earth, and other religious themes, on which the events that take place in the film are loosely based. Merhige, a firm believer in alchemy and hermeticism, has acknowledged that the film was deliberately arranged to appear as part of a mythology. According to film and literary scholar William E.B. Verrone, "Begotten"s core storyline was a mixture of ancient mythologies that dealt with stories and themes, such as the birth of a divine entity and their subsequent suffering through various means, citing the film as "a cryptic passion play about Earth's birth and torture". Verrone went on to explain that the film's highly symbolic and metaphorical plot was intended to evoke a response different than that offered in more traditional cinematic offerings. Art historian Scott MacDonald pointed out that the film's highly allegorical plot represents many of the popular attitudes towards both the origins of life and religion, which have been put forth over the span of several centuries. MacDonald also interpreted the film's plot as the death of god or deity, and the birth and rape of Nature. In their book "Cult Cinema: An Introduction", film studies scholars Ernest Mathijs and Jamie Sexton noted that the film "makes perhaps the most serious attempt to visualize elements of Dionysian orgiastic cultism in combination with Gnostic and pagan myths". Robert DiMatteo pointed out the film's ritualistic and religious aspects such as the idea of "God's eye".