Co-produced by Eli Roth, The Sacrament is the new film by Ti West, an independent director who has earned fans with slow-burning and old-fashioned supernatural genre films, including The House of the Devil. The plot is set in motion when a fashion photographer is contacted by his estranged sister, a long-term drug user. Claiming she is rehabilitated, she reveals she is now living abroad in an isolated Christian commune, which she invites him to visit. With a pair of journalists from the alternative magazine VICE in tow, he travels into the jungle to find her and investigate. Beyond a fence guarded by men with machine guns, they find a serene, technology-free agricultural community lorded over by "Father," a charismatic preacher. Father's disciples argue for peace, love, and freedom from the pace of the modern world, but dangerous secrets lie beneath the surface.

There is no point in denying or dancing around this fact: Father is a super-thinly-fictionalized representation of James "Jim" Jones, the notorious Indiana-born religious leader who, in the late 1970s, led his legion of believers, consisting largely of impoverished African Americans, to Guyana and later forced them to commit suicide rather than contend with outside intrusion. He also ordered the murder of Leo Ryan, a California politician with a particular interest in investigating cults, and four others at a nearby airfield on the same day. I knew The Sacrament drew inspiration from Jones and the tragedy he wrought before watching the film, but it made me far more uncomfortable than I expected. In many respects, the film adheres to the true story beat for beat except Ryan and his colleagues are replaced by the VICE reporters, and the plot is revealed via their cameras (a "found-footage" format). The dual aims—to build suspense and tease the audience in the interest of popcorn entertainment while also recreating Jones' enormous crime—clash against each other rather than coalesce.

There is, I admit, admirable craftsmanship and showmanship on display as suspense slowly mounts via nervous sideways glances and other modest indications of the nightmare to come. West is as ever a master of subtle time-release dread. However, by the time the images we cannot help but anticipate do come (babies administered poison via a syringe, elderly men and women holding each other as they taste the poisoned juice), they send one's mind to an extreme and haunting place, and it is distasteful to see them blended with footage of co-star Joe Swanberg racing around the jungle playing a game of Paranormal Activity. In my personal opinion, West's well-honed directorial gifts and the imposing, magnetic performance of Gene Jones as Father are worthy of a certain amount of objective praise, but nothing compensates for the resulting nausea as a grotesque event which resulted in over 900 futile deaths is exploited for empty-headed, sensationalist entertainment. Other people's mileage will surely vary.

C

You're way off man, this is a very tense and well-made film. They should have just dropped the found-footage angle. Otherwise - great stuff. Ti West continues to deliver. I don't think the event is exploited here at all and the movie doesn't ever even try to hide what it is based on. It is just a retelling of the story, not too different from Greengrass' United 93.

I disagree. This is a thousand miles away from United 93, which even uses many of the real people involved on the day in the air-traffic-control sequences.

This has zero interest in exploring the psychology of cults nor is it a detailed and realistic portrayal of the Jonestown mass suicide. It just exploits the iconography of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple for the purposes of a B found-footage horror movie.

I let out of an actual groan when, before the end credits, it lists how many people died at "Eden Parish" and says the Joe Swanberg and AJ Bowen characters were -the only survivors-.

It worked for me, the portrayal of the brainwashing, the charismatic leader type...in fact, you could see why the people followed him. I am pretty sure that Ti West is not one for exploit real life events for a horror movie. He gives an honest portrayal, but changes the names and the setting so that he doesn't have to replicate the very well-documented fates of people there, but can play more freely with his characters.

Just watched it and thought it was great. The second best Ti West film after The Innkeepers. It was incredibly engrossing and quite disturbing.

8/10 (B+)


For the record I gave House of the Devil a 7/10 (B-), mostly because I really dug its style regardless of it being deathly slow in the middle, and The Inkeepers an 8/10 (B+).

While I don't know much about the true story this movie is based from, I thought the movie was great. Incredibly well made, perfect pacing and all of the actors were great in it. The two lead guys, the sister and Father were all fantastic. In a time where found footage films are a dime a dozen, very few are great. Thankfully this is one of them. Incredibly disturbing, intense and it really makes you think.

A-

The Sacrament

Filmed and paced perfectly, with a great premise and performances from all. The Sacrament is an eerie utopian thriller with a Christian-extremist twist directed by Ti West. I was disappointed by the lack of fright and intensity that The Sacrament gave me. From the trailer, I expected to be more frightened and horrified than I was (which, I wasn't at all). I was deeply in a state interest or poise, and although I enjoyed the film and its delivery very much, I feel they could have elevated the threat and eeriness to something containing ritualistic and scary cult-style sacrifices instead of drinking "orange soda" for mass suicide. At no point did I feel the main characters were in any real danger. When something happened (like someone being lit on fire or someone getting shot) the "realistic hand-held filming" cleverly hid it. But I do like Ti West. His The Innkeepers is, as this film is, very well filmed and delivered. It's "horror" as art, which to a large degree completely removes the fear, dread, disturbance, and horror of it all. I'd like to see him tackle a mature action thriller.

B