The Sacrament Review

The Sacrament (2014)

IMDB genre: Horror/Thriller

Director: Ti West

Writer: Ti West

Starring: Joe Swanberg, AJ Bowen, Kentucker Audley

This is usually my initial reaction to movies that claim to be ‘based on real events’:

When I then investigate and realise that there’s very little truth to it I relax again. However, The Sacrament was the other way around. I had read dozens of positive reviews for this film but I knew very little about it and having only seen this DVD cover:

Which I think has a supernatural/demonic possession feel to it, it’s fair to say I did not know what I was getting into when it appeared on Netflix this month!

That didn't end up being a problem though as I was blown away by this film and reading about the real events that the film loosely portrayed ensured that it left a lasting impression.

People may be put off by this being (yet another!) found footage film but if you are the one of those people I would say please don’t be, please watch it. This isn't one of those shaky, Blair Witch type films and in fact I barely noticed that it was filmed in this way.

The Sacrament reminded me of The House of the Devil in a lot of ways (if you haven’t seen that watch it right now!) in that it’s a slow-burner with not much happening besides a permeating sense of dread for much of the movie followed by a full-on ending. This certainly isn't a bad thing as, without giving too much away, the ending is a real punch in the gut.

All of the actors were brilliant but the particular stand-out for me was Amy Seimetz as I thought she played the evolution of her character perfectly.

In conclusion, all the good things you've heard about this film are true, check it out.

General Opinion:

Scare Factor:

The events could really happen and that sends shivers down my spine.

Gore:

There’s not gore throughout but what is there is quite brutal and used very effectively.

Comedy: 

This comes from banter between the film crew at the start of the film but it’s not sustained, this is definitely not a comedy)

The Beginning

First a little about me; I'm 24, I live in England and as someone pointed out to me recently, I'm a little of a conundrum! This observation was stated after I browsed in a second-hand entertainment shop and purchased both three horror films and three High School Musical CD's, how's that for different?
Don't worry though, this blog will only focus on my love of horror.
I am not fussy and I pick horror based on a lot of different factors depending on my mood at the time. Therefore, when I review horrors I will rate a number of elements:

•  Overall opinion, stars out of ten. 
•  Scare factor, spiders out of ten. Spiders scare me.....
•  Gore, buckets of blood out of ten! This will reflect the level of gore but I'll also comment on  the quality.
•  Comedy, clowns (?) out of ten. I will also state whether this comedy is intentional or not.

So that's what you can expect from this blog, I hope you're excited!

I attended Mayhem X Film Festival in November 2014 and watched The Sacrament today so I will start with reviews of those films over the next few days.

Thanks for reading.