The supernatural hostage thriller \u201cThe Sacrifice Game\u201d feels like a self-conscious throwback, though not to any particular style or genre. If anything, \u201cThe Sacrifice Game\u201d feels like a response to Quentin Tarantino\u2019s allusive style of post-modern cine-pastiche, especially given the filmmakers\u2019 concern for a Manson Family-style cult, who invade a girls\u2019 boarding school before Christmas, and take hostage its last remaining occupants: two shy students, an eager-to-please young teacher, and her doting boyfriend, too.<\/p>\n
There are a few other prominent influences on \u201cThe Sacrifice Game,\u201d including the Coen Brothers\u2019 bleakly funny \u201890s blizzard noir classic \u201cFargo\u201d and the dour mid-\u201870s horror movies of Bob Clark, particularly his 1974 twofer of \u201cBlack Christmas\u201d and \u201cDeathdream.\u201d Unfortunately, these affectionately dog-eared references don\u2019t cohere into a meaningfully personal style, which makes unflattering Tarantino comparison somewhat unavoidable. How could you not think of \u201cOnce Upon a Time in Hollywood\u201d while watching the opening scene of \u201cThe Sacrifice Game,\u201d which begins the movie with a Family-style home invasion and triple homicide, presented in a showy long take with smooth, gliding camerawork. <\/p>\n
The killing starts with a knife to the throat of an actor who looks like he could by Cliff Booth\u2019s stunt double. Another victim\u2019s blood is used to draw an ominous-looking symbol on a set of windows overlooking the backyard. Then an on-screen title credit announces the movie\u2019s start with a corny faux-retro font. This ice-cold opening should sting, but it\u2019s not fast or focused enough to be upsetting. <\/p>\n
The rest of \u201cThe Sacrifice Game\u201d wouldn\u2019t feel like such a lumpy blend of genre conventions if its creators remixed the past with greater conviction or technical finesse. An opening title card that announces both the date\u2014\u201cDecember 22, 1971\u201d\u2014and how far away the next major holiday is (\u201cThree nights until Christmas\u201d) suggests that somebody doesn\u2019t expect their audience will be paying attention. <\/p>\n
The boarding school\u2019s last remaining residents also barely distinguish themselves before they\u2019re tied up and forced to either witness or participate in a grisly supernatural ritual. Teenage Samantha (Madison Baines) cries when her dad tells her, off-camera and over the phone, that he can\u2019t spend Christmas with her after all. And Samantha\u2019s timid schoolmate, Clara (Georgia Acken), mostly keeps to herself, when she\u2019s not being bullied. (She also enjoys drawing.) Affable young teacher Rose (Chloe Levine) wants to be everyone\u2019s friend, and her shy, but physical fit boyfriend Jimmy (Gus Kenworthy) can\u2019t stop reminding us of his finite mortality. (\u201cI\u2019ll be back soon. Can\u2019t wait.\u201d) <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a quartet of killers give speeches and slouch around with slicked back hair, sideburns, turtle necks, leather jackets, and other fetish-ready vintage\/period looks. Jude (Mena Masoud), the leader, gives orders and preens while long-haired paranoiac Doug (Laurent Pitre) envies Jude\u2019s flirty connection with Maisie (Olivia Scott Welch), who smokes and knows things about dark magic. Grant (Derek Johns) is just another heavy with a past. The group\u2019s plan to perform a blood sacrifice does not go their way. Then the girls fight back against their evil hippie-presenting captors. <\/p>\n
A meandering plot and some by-the-numbers characterizations wouldn\u2019t be so bad if \u201cThe Sacrifice Game\u201d didn\u2019t otherwise feel so threadbare. Tin-eared dialogue, credited to director Jenn Wexler and co-writer Sean Redlitz, often makes the movie seem longer than its 99-minute runtime. And time moves slowest when characters declaim about what\u2019s really motivating them, like when Doug takes way too much time explaining their group\u2019s power dynamic (it\u2019s not great!), or when Jude vamps about the true meaning of \u201csacrifice.\u201d <\/p>\n
This long, slack, uninflected dialogue feels post-Tarantinian in the sense that it creates more work for already inexperienced performers, and also brings to mind every other movie that already went there. It\u2019s hard to care when a major character psychologically breaks down Grant, who previously served in the Vietnam War. It\u2019s probably even harder to sell hard tack lines like, “But it isn’t just a job, is it? When you’re out there, in the jungle, far from home, knowing that a Viet Cong soldier might already have you lined up in his sights?”\u00a0Either way, the resulting dialogue-intensive scenes aren\u2019t convincing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The supernatural hostage thriller \u201cThe Sacrifice Game\u201d feels like a self-conscious throwback, though not to any particular style or genre. If anything, \u201cThe Sacrifice Game\u201d feels like a response to Quentin Tarantino\u2019s allusive style of post-modern cine-pastiche, especially given the filmmakers\u2019 concern for a Manson Family-style cult, who invade a girls\u2019 boarding school before Christmas, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[48,37],"class_list":["post-1286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horror-movies","tag-horror","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}