The Sacrament

If The Sacrament has anything going for it, it would be how much the filmmakers accomplished with such a small budget. The colony is a worthy achievement; a lot of time and effort has been put into constructing the huts and various buildings. The isolation of the colony and the complacency of its inhabitants effectively establishes an eerie vibe and these are the main reasons why the first half of the film is the strongest. What tension there is builds slowly, and your time isn't wasted with jump scares and cheap thrills. Also, I appreciate, despite the fact that this is a found-footage film, that the camera isn't too shaky.

As a whole, unfortunately, The Sacrament is ultimately ineffective as a horror/thriller film. Ti West and company have derived a lot of inspiration from the Jonesville mass suicide in 1978, and this ends up being a negative contribution to the film. I have watched harrowing TV documentaries regarding this truly horrifying moment in human history, but The Sacrament is simply as predictable as any routine horror film. I made the Jim Jones connection very early on. The appearance of Gene Jones as "Father" only confirmed this connection, though Jones is definitely a wonderful member of the cast and I applaud the filmmakers for tracking him down.

I'm sure that there was a way to make this work. But the resemblances to Jonesville render the film practically unnecessary; I knew exactly what was going to happen. I understand that the film was based on a very disturbing event, but that doesn't give it a free pass. From a historic point of view, this is an interesting representation of Jim Jones' cult. But from a creative point of view, the film is ultimately an hour of slow -building tension with a restrained payoff. A good twist or perhaps taking the Jonesville concept in a unique direction would have given this a few more stars from me.

In conclusion, I recommend this for people who have never heard of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. For everyone else, I can't say the same.

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.

I was born in 83, so anything I know of Jonestown has been gleaned from podcasts, documentaries, or anniversary television broadcasts. Even that is much more than some.

And that's how it works, right? As much as we hate to admit it, as time moves on, everything (and I do mean *everything*) fades from memory. Go ahead and ask a 16 yr old nowadays who Jim Jones or David Koresh were - I bet they'll roll their eyes and assume you're talking about an 80s rock band lead. That fading and moving on of time is exactly why the remake/prequel/sequel/reboot industry is a thing of the Millennial age that never was before.

In order for history (good, bad, or indifferent) to continue to be passed along, the stories have to be retold and reincarnated in ways that are more appealing to those who come after. So maybe The Sacrament doesn't come right out and say, "Hey, we remade Guyana," but I sincerely doubt any of the filmmakers involved thought that viewers of the right age were going to mistake the story for anything else. Another movie that tells a variation of Jonestown without acknowledging it is "The Veil" btw.

As far as found footage films go, this one is high quality cinematography-wise. I thought the casting was actually fairly impressive, and despite knowing exactly where the story was headed, I did find the second half hard to watch; it did give me insight into Jonestown in a way that was truly shocking.

Worth a watch. Won't blow your mind, or bring home an Oscar, but Ti West is always hit or miss with me (mostly miss) and this one wasn't too bad. If you would rather see Jonestown through a less modern, less horror-genre lens, then by all means, go watch the stuff made in the 80s.

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.

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.