Sacrifice

If, like us, you haven't been insensitive to the films The Wicker man (1973) and more recently Midsommar (2019), the second film by the duo Andy Collier and Toor Mian after Charismata (2017) should catch your full attention. Offered as part of the British virtual festival Frighftest, it is certainly one of the best films in the selection. Far from being just a mix of horrific thriller featuring the actions of a cult making offerings to a monstrous creature, Sacrifice is a film about motherhood, integration but also about the confrontation of people from different countries and totally opposite cultures.

After his mother's death, Isaac and his pregnant wife Emma return to the Norwegian village on an island to face an unexpected inheritance. They find themselves caught in a waking nightmare as an ancient and frightening evil is awakened to claim its due. When Isaac learns from Sheriff Renate (Barbara Campton) that his father did not die naturally and that he had come to sell his mother's house, he realizes the actions of a cult while his wife is plagued by repeated nightmares. Andy Collier and Toor Mian not only brought to life a remarkable and compelling screenplay, but above all their highly inspired staging created an atmosphere as attractive as it is disturbing. The film Sacrifice is an adaptation of writer Paul Kane's short story Men of the Cloth but also draws its inspiration from the world of H. P. Lovecraft's works.

Rather clever, the screenwriters quickly understood that their film was going to be compared to The Wicker man (1973) and that it had to be given a real dimension of its own. By moving the action from the British location of the short story to an isolated village in Norway and by playing on multiple oppositions, the two directors thus play perfectly on the natural settings and bring an important religious dimension to it. In the same way, Sacrifice takes a definite step back from Midsommar, even though these two films have a number of points in common, such as the blindness of the sect's members and its deliberate isolation. Water plays an important role here, whether it is the obvious link with fertility or the fact of being baptized in order to be integrated into the sect. In the same way, even if we will never see giant monsters holding an important place in the work of HP Lovecraft (myth of Cthulhu), we feel indeed an inhuman presence marked by supernatural forces.

Sacrifice turns out to be one of the outstanding films of the Frightfest festival and we can already bet that its release in 2021 will not go unnoticed. This film will be distributed in the United States by Epic Pictures Group and it is hoped that it will also be distributed in France. We can only advise you to discover this excellent film that you will keep in your memory long after you have seen it...

Sacrifice
Written and directed by Andy Collier, Toor Mian
Produced by Toor Mian, Ross Scaife
Starring Barbara Crampton, Sophie Stevens, Ludovic Hughes, Lukas Loughran
Music by Tom Linden
Cinematography: Andy Collier
Edited by Harry Baker
Release date: October 22, 2020 (UK)
Running time: 87 minutes

Viewed on October 20, 2020 (screener press)

Mulder's Mark: