“The Sacrament” has plenty of potential, but with a small budget and inexperienced team, it stumbles before gaining speed.
Writer, director and editor Ti West took charge of this film, steering it in a few different directions. It doesn’t have the content to be a horror film by today’s definition, but it has a lot of the genre’s signature characteristics; from the deliberately amateur cinematography — found-footage films like “Paranormal Activity” — to the slow drawn out opening with the big finale.
There aren’t any supernatural elements in this flick, but don’t worry, the crew threw in a creepy little girl who’s face is half-hidden behind hair to please some of those cravings.
The movie follows Sam and Jake as they go with Patrick to a compound called “Eden Parish” in Venezuela to check on Patrick’s sister, Caroline (Amy Seimetz). They take their cameras to document the trip and get a worthwhile story out of the trip. A religious man known as Father (Gene Jones) runs the compound and they get the honor of interviewing him.
Before things get weird.
Patrick (Kentucker Audley), seemingly the main character, finds out that his sister is missing. The focus shifts to Sam (AJ Bowen), the VICE reporter and Patrick’s friend and cameraman. Yes, Jake gets his time in the spotlight, too.
Each of them gets their moment; Sam has a funny monologue when he tells the camera about his thoughts on the strangeness of the situation, Jake throws out lines smoothly when he gets the chance.
But the real scene stealers are the leaders of the compound. Seimetz played Caroline well, delivering every line casually and confidently. Her performance was natural and authentic from her words to the glances she gave the camera. Father was right on up there with her. Jones embodied his character and had every mannerism down. Every bit of their dialogue was just right — it’s clear that West knew these characters and wrote for them.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the others. Bowen doesn’t connect with his character, Sam, and it comes across on film. His lines appear forced and he has a tendency to “over act.”
All of the little things added up and brought the film down. There was too much text setting up the movie, distracting time stamps that took away from the action, some bad camera angles and extremely fake blood.
It’s upsetting because there were other scenes when they got it right. In one scene the blood was thick and red and the other it was a bright hot rod red. The same goes with the cinematography and the acting from the leads. They got it and lost it again and again.
“The Sacrament” really does have some great moments, but they’re cast in a shadow by all the little mistakes.
