By Keri O’Shea
Here at Brutal as Hell we have a nickname for ourselves: that nickname is ‘Contrary as Fuck’, because you can bet your bottom dollar that for every film which sparks a massive positive reaction in the horror world, at least one of us will at best shrug, and at worst actively reject it. For my part, where everyone seemed to be waxing lyrical about the merits of director Ti West’s supernatural thriller The Inkeepers a couple of years back, I actively hated it. The generic-looking ghost, the whiny hipster female lead…my good god. It was a real case of ‘is it just me?’ and I still think it might have been. That said, House of the Devil – which I caught up to quite recently – was diverting enough, and I have to admit I was more than a little curious when I saw that West had put his name to a modern-day version of the story of the Jonestown Massacre, thus moving into new territory altogether. This is The Sacrament, and – you know what? It’s a pleasant surprise in many ways.
The film begins with an introduction to an organisation, based in New York, called VICE – a modern-day media outlet comprising of three young men, Jake, Sam and Patrick, who use their expertise and the internet as a medium to report unorthodox, or otherwise underrepresented news items from around the world. They refer to their approach as ‘immersionism’, which really seems to be a multimedia form of gonzo journalism. This all takes a personal twist, when Patrick receives a letter from his sister, Caroline. Caroline had been drying out in a small Christian commune after succumbing to a drug problem, and she’s written to her brother begging him to come and visit her. When he tries to do so, he finds that she and all of the other family members have in fact left the United States, and he’s told where he needs to go to find them.
This seems like too good an opportunity for VICE to miss, so Jake and Sam decide to tag along too, cameras in hand (natch) to record the event. They roll up somewhere in South America (Jonestown was Guyana, but the exact place here isn’t named), getting past a rather ominous armed guard, but eventually they find Caroline apparently happy, healthy and contented in an idyllic commune called Eden Parish, alongside a lot of other once-troubled folk – all now equally under the sway of an enigmatic figure known as ‘Father’. The small film crew are made welcome and permitted to wander around during their short stay, interviewing the residents and forming their own conclusions about life in Eden Parish. They find nothing particularly amiss, actually; there’s suspicion of them as outsiders, and they find it hard to fathom why people would sell their homes and their cash for the building of a remote project like this, but perhaps that’s just their urbane cynicism talking.
Whatever. You know damn well that it’s only a matter of time before there’s a sinister twist, and if you know even the leanest version of the history behind this film, you might wonder at how The Sacrament doesn’t colllapse beneath that weight. In truth, West accomplishes a great deal here. By bringing a version of the Jonestown tale into the modern day and giving us some largely likeable, plausible protagonists to play it out (plus some modern technological means with which to do it) he’s able to craft an effective, tense horror film. One of the ways he does this is by getting straight to the nub of the plot, by using a lot of on-screen text at the beginning of the movie. It’s a risk, but it works: we find out what’s going on and why, and then we are essentially on a par with our main guys, finding out what’s happening alongside them as they travel to the commune. Part of this is via the truly ubiquitous handheld camera shooting style with which we’re now oh-so familiar, but it’s carefully done here, for the most part. Sure, as ever there are some sections in the film where I could do without it, but in others, West manages to work the framing device neatly into the plot, even using it to give us a decent twist in one scene.
It’s remarkable really, seeing as the source material is so well-known, that this film manages to create such a sense of foreboding. Partly, this is because it is so able to take its time. There’s no need, thanks to the early exposition, to dwell on establishing who our protagonists or antagonists are or what they’re doing; we’re given plenty of footage of life in Eden Parish looking just fine, and the gradual rising tension comes on so slowly, that it’s almost painful. The superb performance by ‘Father’ (Gene Jones) has a substantial part to play in this rising tension; pitched wrongly, this part could have been laughable. As it stands, Jones manages to make his character recognisable, but crucially charismatic and plausible. Not to knock the good performances all round, but The Sacrament hinges on the role of Father, and Jones delivers. The dark, building, pulsing soundtrack acts as a signal that things are going to turn ugly, too – as does the Christian singing, which – ah come on – is creepy all on its own.
This isn’t a perfect movie; some of the signposting in the film is gargantuan and neon-lit, and as mentioned, if you have an especial aversion to tripod-less camerawork then you may grow exasperated with some sequences. However, as someone who’s been non-commital on West’s work to date, I found this film very refreshing and well-crafted; it kept me engaged and, in places, yes it did manage to shock me. Quiet and brooding it might be, up to a point, but it also (obliquely) shows things on screen which just aren’t shown at all in most movies, however grisly their reputations. Ultimately, the source material for The Sacrament is more disturbing and complex than most horror movies. West is aware of that, but has transformed it by changing it, dramatising it, and then humanising it. It all seems more disturbing when you’re made to see it that way, and by bringing it up to date, it reminds us that this shit hasn’t disappeared, twenty-first century or not.
The Sacrament is subtle and savage in equal measure. I for one didn’t see that coming.
The Sacrament will be released in UK cinemas and on VOD from June 6th 2014.