Review of The Sacrament (2014) by Steven W — 28 Sep 2014

The Sacrament is an intriguing film. It suffers from a clumsy and eye rolling found-footage narrative choice. The performances and script underpinning them are uneven, and the plot goes nowhere. By all rights it should be an absolute disaster. It does however succeed at communicating one terrifying idea, and by doing so elevates itself above it's own amatuerish production values.

I won't get into the specifics since knowing exactly what happens will blunt the only thing this movie has going for it. The main thrust is that you can indeed imagine yourself being in the exact same situation as the protaganists in the story. It would require only a tenuous link to the cult they go to visit , and the plane ticket to get there. You will ask yourself what you could do to get out of the situation, but you won't find any easy answers. When you can't fight or think youself out of problem, all you can do is survive it. In the end it's not really up to them what happens, they are helpless, and that helplessness instills an unescapable sense of dread that is all too real and understandable. So it gets an A for the story and a couple memorable performances, and an F for everything else.