A Sacrifice
2024
Action / Drama / Horror / Mystery / Thriller

A Sacrifice
2024
Action / Drama / Horror / Mystery / Thriller
Plot summary
American social psychologist Ben Monroe investigates a local cult connected to a disturbing event. While he immerses himself into his work, his rebellious teenage daughter, Mazzy, gets involved with a mysterious local boy, who introduces her to the city’s underground party scene. As these two worlds head towards an intersection, Mazzy finds herself in great danger and Ben will need to race against the clock to save her.
Director
Tech specs
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This was bad
Monotone
The movie touched on some cult recruitment practices and attempted to address the why people get sucked into groups with some slightly on the nose dialogue dressed up as academic banter.
Unfortunately I'm familiar having directly experienced a real cult and it's terrifying groupthink. The use of psychedelics is a cult trope but mostly not the case. Maybe the cult this was based on used them but that's a generally held misbeleif. It doesn't take much to suck the unguarded in. We're social animals and crave community and acceptance.
None the less it did expose some cult standards. Being made to feel special. Group acceptance. False dilemmas to instil fear and compliance. A sociopathic cult leader. Etc.
From a movie/narrative perspective the story was a little flat and one dimensional. A splash of colour should have spruced it up visually. Sub plots were thin and the twist foreshadowing tipped its hand.
Eric did a good job as did his co-stars but I had the feeling they weren't buying the dialogue here and there. Still it was watchable and there wasn't that feeling you'd just wasted two hours of your life.
I just wish it had that extra something.