After digging up a bizarrely mutilated corpse on her land, physician Tora Hamilton uncovers a lethal connection to ancient pagan rituals.
So goes the Netflix description for Sacrifice. And while it's essentially accurate, after watching the thing it feels a little misleading. I was expecting some hot pagan action - you know, crazy cultists in robes chasing people around, nutso rituals and skull masks, and all that kind of stuff. But Sacrifice just isn't that movie. Despite being in the "horror" section of the Netflix site, it's much more of a mystery/thriller. Yeah, it has elements of pagan rituals and some weird stuff, but it almost plays more like a spooky Halloween episode of Criminal Minds or something. (Or at least what I'd imagine Criminal Minds is like, having never actually seen it.)
My Synopsis: In addition to what's up top there, I would say that Tora Hamilton (Radha Mitchell) has been wanting to have a baby forever, but it's just not happening. She and her husband move to Scotland - her husband's homeland - where it's a lot easier to adopt a baby, I guess. But one day she finds a corpse, and doesn't accept the official explanation of what's happened. The cops say it's super old, but she thinks otherwise. She unearths a vast conspiracy - but just how deep does it go?
Elaborate Genre: Mystery Thriller. There's not really even enough cult stuff in the film to justify listing it. The story *needs* the cult stuff I guess, but it's very much in the background.
Overall: Not too bad, but not too good. Just very middle of the road, and you have to suspend your disbelief for it to work at all.
The big problem with writing about a film like this is that you can't really get into it too much without being really spoiler heavy. So sorry if things are kind of vague here. I'm not saying Sacrifice is something that you should rush out and see. But if you know the story, there's very little else that would make it worthwhile. It's the kind of thing where watching the story unfold *is* the point of the movie. So should you ever stumble across it, it's better to not be spoiled, I guess.
And I guess this could be an okay thriller to watch with someone that isn't really into horror movies. While there are a few acts of violence that make could make you wince, it's never overly gory or anything like that. Although the film kicks off with some pregnancy grossness, which is always a little shocking to me. It kind of sets the tone that anything could happen, but then nothing really does... I think it's literally the most troublesome thing in the film.
Like I said, tonally it feels more like a cinematic police procedural that anything else. Except for the fact that our main character isn't actually involved with law enforcement. Radha Mitchell is good as Tora - she's generally likable and you want to see her succeed in her quest for the truth. But she's never really given a good reason to be *on* the quest to begin with. There was more than one occasion early on in her "investigation" where it seemed like the most reasonable course of action would have been to just give up.
Sacrifice is decently shot, and the Scottish seaside gives the film a nice little dose of dreary atmosphere. But the focus of the film is much more on Tora's story than anything - so while the setting looks nice, it's never much more than just a background. Which is too bad - the scenes where the terrain plays a more active role look really good (i.e. the driving scenes, the finale).
When it's all said and done, I was never really upset with Sacrifice. It's competently made and interesting enough, if not a little misleadingly marketed. My big beef was that there would have been a *really* easy way to avoid the whole central conflict of the film, but if they went that route, I guess there's no movie. So I suppose that's forgivable in the grand scheme of things.
I would tentatively recommend this film.
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