Review of The Sacrament (2014) by Steve W — 08 Aug 2014

I thought The Sacrament was effectively creepy and intense; it's slow paced for the first two-thirds (of it's story) but there's always a disturbing sense of danger and the end is fittingly shocking and gruesome.

A lot of the movie is setup but it did a good job of keeping me interested and curious about what would happen next. I think there was potential for a much better film here though. I think West is a talented horror filmmaker but he has yet to prove himself as a really good one.

The problem I had most with this movie is that it doesn't explain why people are doing the things they're doing at all; besides the cult leader (who's very well played by Jones), none of the characters are developed well at all.

It does seem like you're watching a lot of random video, put together, of events that are never fully explained (and a lot of it seems almost exactly like the true life events that inspired it). West, disappointingly, doesn't explore why those events happened or take any creative liberty with them.

Still the film is interesting and entertaining enough to sit through.