It’s a (well-known) fact -at least for friends&neighbours- that I binge-watch pretty much all horror Netflix and Amazon Prime dare to put online. Horror movies are a habit I developed as a teenager, and I’ve never stopped. But I’ve realised only recently how difficult is to make a good one, now that all tropes have been exhausted and bold ideas you read in short stories and novels struggle to find expression in a different medium. When you’re lucky, you may find acceptable ones that employ a more sophisticated, even though not necessarily original plot to try to scare you.
It’s the case of Sacrifice (2016).
That’s the story, as listed on IMDB: “Tora Hamilton is an obstetrician who moves together with her husband, Duncan, to the remote Shetland Islands, 100 miles off the north-east coast of Scotland. Deep within the soil around her new house, Tora finds the body of a girl with runes carved into her skin and a gaping hole in her chest where her heart once was. Neglecting warnings to leave the body alone, Tora uncovers frightening connections to an ancient legend.”
Now, interestingly enough, this movie got awful reviews all around, IMO, for the wrong reasons.
Let’s start with the Guardian: “We’re in Shetland, though it’s clearly not Shetland. I’ve never even been to Shetland and I know that’s not Shetland, probably from watching Shetland the crime drama. The big hill disappearing into the clouds, the trees later on … nothing like it. Ah yes, filmed on location in County Wicklow and County Dublin. Probably a foretaste of things to come, when it will be easier and cheaper for an international production like this to be be made in the EU, until Scotland rejoins and Shetland will be back on…”
Now, while I could tell straight away it was not in Shetland (I live in Scotland after all), I not sure anybody outside the UK can make the difference. Didn’t Sergio Leone turn all his famous Western movies in Spain? Shetland or Ireland, there’s in this movie an ethereal Celtic lore atmosphere quite alluring.
Different criticism comes from a different point of view, and it’s even more severe: “Sacrifice‘s take on suspense is constructed from familiar Hitchcock themes, including an ordinary person flung into paranoia while exploring a secret society (…) This movie should be taught in film school—just as Hitchcock movies can teach filmmaking, so can their failed imitators provide us with elementary examples of when technique goes horribly wrong.”
I agree on this point if you consider it as a thriller: more, it’s positively awful. But to me, a thriller it was not -it was horror trying to step away from the supernatural (which is what you might have expected given the plot) and that uses the fanaticism of a close society to give you the creeps.
[Spoiler warning here:]
The only moment I was *really* annoyed is what I call the “converting-the-Jedi moment” – the bad guy making the speech which HE thinks is going to brainwash his fierce opponent just because he looks inspired and speaks the words. This is so implausible you think either the guy is mentally impaired or he had mammoth doses of dope; whatever the reason, I laughed out loud, which is not the outcome you want in a horror movie.
For a more balanced review, highlighting positive aspects in addition to the obvious shortcomings, see this.
A final thing: the two female characters (Tora and the police officer) fare way better than the dumb males who surround them. That’s another reason to watch Sacrifice, considering the roles women are generally confined to in horror movies.
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