R, 95 min.
Director/Writer: Ti West
Starring: AJ Bowen, Joe
Swanberg, Amy Seimetz, Kentucker Audley, Kate Lyn Sheil, Gene Jones
It’s true. Since “The Blair
Witch Project” popularized the found footage horror subgenre, it has been done
to death. And that’s putting it lightly considering the past few years. Found
footage has even found its way into family films, like this past summer’s “Earth
to Echo”. I can’t for the life of
me figure out why an already established and quite impressive horror director
like Ti West would be inspired to make a found footage movie, but with his
latest, “The Sacrament”, he puts in his bid on the horse-beaten gimmick.
That being said, West makes
a pretty good found footage flick here. I think the gimmick gets in the way of
the power of the piece, but enough of the thematic effect gets past the
restrictions of the style to make it worth watching. In fact, the subject and
suspense of the film is so well handled that I’d be singing some really vibrant
praises were it not for the stylistic flat note here.
Through title cards we are
given information about a news organization known as Vice, that digs into the
dirt not covered by bigger news companies. They’ve been approached by a man who
received a strange letter from his sister, which explained how she found a
recovery group that helped her through her drug addiction and that she has sold
all her Earthly possessions and has moved out of the country with them. She
invites her brother to come and join the truly free society they are building.
Accessible only by helicopter the Vice team agrees to send a cameraman and
reporter with the man to rescue his sister from the reclusive religious
commune.
Borrowing heavily from the
real life events of the Jonestown Massacre of 1978, West does a good job
pulling the audience into the tension of the plot with a frightening initial
contact with the commune outside the compound. Once inside, however, the film
crew finds a surprisingly convincing lifestyle that is hard to argue against.
Expecting resistance to their presence, they find they are welcomed with open
arms. They are even awarded an interview with the group’s enigmatic leader, Father,
played as a pitch perfect Evangelist by Gene Jones.
It is at the interview where
the mood turns, however, more so for the audience than the characters. The
interview is a masterpiece of dialogue and hiding meanings beneath the meanings.
Watch carefully as Father ever so subtly threatens the interviewer’s wife and unborn
child with a smile on his face. The interviewer isn’t even sure what happened.
He’s still surprised to find himself on board with this commune thing—not for
him, but he’s willing to admit it sounds like an ideal life. Then, a mute girl
approaches the filmmakers and everything turns very dark very quickly.
Even with the restriction of
coming up with excuses to have the camera running during vital moments of
revelation and suspense, West does a great job building the suspense at a
minimal rate to an excruciating boil by the time Father orders his followers to
take their own lives. West is under no illusions that everyone is willing to
just lay down their lives and those of their children just because they’ve
spoken of such commitment when Father queues them to. It’s a really horrific
realization of how such a mass suicide might go down. It ain’t pretty.
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