The Sacrament

The Sacrament is a fairly straightforward movie. It's about a group of guys who are part of a documentary film group and one of the guys' sister moves into an isolated commune and the film crew wants to know the full scoop. You'll know exactly where this movie is going as it progresses, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gives a chance for director Ti West to establish some character background and vague insights into the religious group while slowly turning the creep dial up until the movie's climax. The acting is good across the board, the standout being the Father (Gene Jones) who is suitably charismatic as the cult's ominous leader. For a found-footage movie it's shot well, but of course there are the typical issues that come with the turf - impossible angles, how the footage was even found - but these are things you'd know going in. The movie itself is a well executed, suspenseful slow burn.

The biggest fault in The Sacrament is its predictability. Again, it's not a bad thing, we just know what's coming at every turn. Creepy cult, innocent people poking their noses in places they don't belong, an underlying dark scheme that slowly unravels to the protagonists. If that kind of stuff interests you and you're willing to forgive the tropes that come with the genre, The Sacrament is a worthwhile watch.

What starts out as a promising look into a religious cult, quickly turns into a jumbled mess of incoherent storytelling, baffling motivations, and annoying camera work.

The problem is none of the characters are well rounded or defined beyond the absolute basics (and they do incredibly stupid things throughout the film, especially in the second half). So when things start going bad, it's hard to care. The film seems to want to offer a deep, nuanced look into the world of cults, but West doesn't seem to be able to paint anyone with more than a primary colored brush. Everyone is a caricature ...especially "Father", who is little more than a mouthpiece for religious mumbo jumbo.

The decision to make this found footage becomes the film's biggest flaw, as the extremely limited use of the camera gives every scene a flat incomplete feeling, totally stripping the film of any gravitas or meaning. Found footage has become a lazy, tired cliché in the horror genre and West is no where near talented enough to make it work. West is quickly becoming a hackneyed presence in the world of horror, and it's a mystery why people make such a big deal of him.

And I am wondering where the hell the $4 Million budget went, since the cinematography is bare bones, we're only ever in a single location, and there are no explosions or huge actions scenes. I mean you could've made this for less than a million dollars and it would've been exactly the same movie.

All in all a disappointing film.

This is basically a re-telling of the Jonestown Massacre, which, if anyone doesn't know, is a real event that happened in the late 1970's, when a megalomaniac by the name of Jim Jones brought several hundred members of a religious group called the People's Temple to a remote jungle location in Guyana.

After a small cadre of politicians arrived by a small private plane to respond to several requests from disillusioned members of the congregation, there suddenly was a desperate stampede by a number of the group to leave the compound. Jim Jones then ordered the guards to shoot the members who were attempting to leave, and gave the entire crowd each a cup of kool-aid laced with cyanide in a mass suicide.

The event was forgotten for many years, and has been dramatized in this film, which takes the original story and hams it up for the camera, by taking the stance of a "reality" show approach to the filming.

Unfortunately, the experiment fails to generate the sense of reality that the filmmakers were attempting to capture, and the feeling is much more forced rather than coming from a real event. Although it was a reasonably noble attempt to make a notorious situation somehow believable, by it's very nature, it is doomed. It would have been much more believable if the film were just shot as a normal film would be, without the extra layer of a "found footage" project.

Since the camera is always supposed to be running, there are moments in the film in which the actors have to look directly into the lens and explain that the camera is going to keep running "so that there is a record of whatever happens," which completely destroys any sense of the reality of the moment -- the idea of deliberately having a camera in someone's hand in each scene is so unbearably false that the viewer is immediately left wondering why on earth they even thought this technique would help to make the story seem "real." In fact, it does the exact opposite.

The use of the hand-held 'shaky cam' in almost every scene is utterly unmotivated -- in what would be the climax of the movie, the camera is so ridiculously present that it almost seems like SNL decided to take the idea and turn it into one of Andy Samberg's sarcastic short films, because they have used such a heavy-handed approach to the material.

In telling the story of Jonestown, nothing would have been needed other than to have just told the story as it unfolded without the addition of this added layer of "reality" -- and it would have been a much more superior film. This, sadly, destroys any chance of that happening.

The story of the People's Temple deserves better treatment than this, and, given a more experienced filmmaker, would have had a much deeper impact. I regret that we have lost that opportunity now, having seen this approach fail.

Ti West's latest horror opus has the viewer following a man going to visit his sister at a remotely hidden commune with 2 internet documentarians in tow to film and follow the story. It turns out to be more of a cult though ruled by an enigmatic leader named Father who seems to have a tight hold over his flock.

It doesn't take long before they realize things aren't exactly as they seem as they are drawn into the horror surrounding Eden Parish.

Many comparisons to real life cult situations of the past are being drawn here in a lot of other reviews and comments which kind of give the ending of the movie away, maybe aptly so, but it really just plays out like a horror movie. A.J. Bowen plays a different kind of role than he's used to and does a great job of it.

Fun cult movie has West moving in a new direction and he does a good job of it. There is quite a bit more action than his previous 2 films as the action moves along at a fairly steady pace. The soundtrack throughout the latter half of the movie detracts a little from the found footage experience as it takes a bit of the reality out of the situation.

Most people seem to dislike the "found-footage" genre, though I personal like to see what stories filmmakers can create and develop it as a found-footage (mostly horror). I did like the first 3 installments of "Paranormal Activity," I absolutely loved "Cloverfield," and "The Blair Witch Project" did scare me. Thus, if you found more than one of these repulsive, ignore my review. I will also warn that this is obviously not a movie for everyone. After watching this movie, I can say that I came out very disturbed and mortified, which was Ti West's intentions (I presume). The whole film feels very real, and I did enjoy Gene Jones and Amy Seimitz's terrifyingly surreal acting. Most people will see this movie knowing how it'll end since it's based on the Jonestown massacre (don't look this up if you don't know it!!!), but that doesn't mean there weren't other aspects of the movie that weren't entertaining. For what the movie is about, I was surprised to still be jumping in my seat and breathing heavily at moments of great suspense. My only complaints about the film were some of the choices Ti West chose to move the story (those moments where the audience knows they are doing something very stupid and it feels unrealistic that they would do that to begin with). Some criticism I've heard is that it takes forever to get to the "good" parts. I'm going to argue that that is false criticism unless you are only looking to watch a 95 minute movie filled with terror and suspense. Yes, the first half of the movie doesn't have very much suspense, but there is still a chilling mood creeping up every minute. Plus, the chemistry between the actors is great and entertaining!