Home Entertainment: ‘Sacrilege’ digital review

First time feature director David Creed’s film, Sacrilege, arrives on digital download on 27th September. The story follows a group of female friends whose weekend away takes a disastrous turn when they find themselves the proposed sacrifice of a local Pagan ritual. Kayla (Tamaryn Payne) gets the news that her attacker has been released from prison. Rattled by the news, she turns to her group of gal pals (which includes her recently-ex-girlfriend) who suggest a girls trip to the country. Things get off to a strange start when they discover a Pagan festival is happening next to the place where they are staying. Rather than keep to themselves, they decide to join in with the festivities, but the next day they find themselves tormented by strange visions and all Hell breaks loose. 

Although positioned as a horror, Sacrilege feels more like you are watching an episode of Hollyoaks: After Dark, albeit a Halloween themed one. The script is weak, the dialogue spotty, and the acting follows suit, with it abundantly obvious that this is a work of fiction. There’s a valiant attempt to create a group of female friends to rival those in Neil Marshall’s The Descent, but sadly this group lacks the complexities of Marshall’s gang. Every interaction feels one-note and forced, and the addition of a same-sex relationship on the outs just seems like an excuse to stick in a soft core love scene between two of the characters. 

The biggest issue with Sacrilege is that it is always clear that you are watching a film. There’s nothing to draw the viewer in through the screen and into the world of these women. The costume design is a key component in preventing this suspension of disbelief. Whilst there is nothing wrong with the clothes themselves, they are clearly all brand new and just taken off of the hanger, nothing looks like the characters have ever worn these clothes before. With the threads so screamingly new, watching Sacrilege sometimes feels like you’re watching a really strange catalogue fashion shoot. 

Sacrilege opens strong, the camera following a man burning alive. The effects and make-up are super-detailed and give the viewer great expectations as to what is going to follow. Unfortunately, Creed never manages to produce anything more that comes close to this electric beginning. The horror aspects that follow all pale in comparison to this initial moment and also get muddled in the lore that the script sets up. The hex that is placed upon the group is meant to kill them via their worst nightmares or phobias, and yet this doesn’t become apparent to the viewer until it is actually spelled out by one of the villagers. The methods of death and torment are so generic that anyone one of the group could be afraid of them. Worse still, if the methods are meant to be specific to different characters, there should be at least some sort of setup, not necessarily for all, but something to exemplify the things that terrifies one or more of them. Without any prior reference, the message gets lost and the audience are left confused. 

There are some good components hidden within Sacrilege, although the strongest are in the opening moments and have little to no bearing on events that follow. After the opening sequence you really have to try hard to dig out the more interesting aspects of the piece. Sadly there aren’t many, and when combined with a clunky script and immaculate make-up and costuming, it creates an environment that clearly screams you are watching a film. The connection between film and viewer is severed early and the disconnect makes it impossible to fully commit to the story.

Sacrilege will be available on digital download from 27th September and can be pre-ordered on iTunes and Apple TV now.