Sacrilege (2020) User Reviews

Do It Yourself Kit badly assembled.

[Lomax343 · 3/10 · 9 March 2020]

I don't know if there's a book called Horror Films for Dummies, but if there is, it would contain a list of typical ingredients for such a production: Bunch of friends; Isolated location; Creepy locals; Lack of phone signal (a necessary 21st century addition); Blurred lines between reality and illusion; Gruesome deaths; Contrived ending.

This film - which sort of aims to be Friday 13th meets The Wicker Man - contains all of the above. The result, however, is distinctly less than the sum of its parts.

As far as I can make out, everyone involved - writer, director, producer, cast - are new in the business. And it shows. The cast do their best with the strictly limited material they've been given, but the writing and the direction let them down terribly. The McGuffin ending is particularly unsatisfying.

I hope that those involved go on to better things - and manage to forget this amateurish effort.

if youre into...

[ops-52535 · 3/10 · 17 March 2021]

Treelove, druidism and british folklore of the past, not stonehengian past but somewhere inbetween the solstices of human existence, where the god of nature must be fed with the human power and sacrifice, where bark masks and the size of the antlers decides your coming destiny, and huffin puffing weed makes the green green grass of home look like the fields of vlanders, and the hallucinations ques up into a shroomlike storm of nightmarish peculiars that diminishes the crew of four into one and so on... well this is how the storyline comes to me, with loads of lack and inconsistecies and not within the realms of common idolartry.

so even though bad story and plot, and just of the hinges acting, there are some cute intersections of visual gore and effects that lifts this film up from the quagmire and falls into a three outta ten from the grumpy old man. the intro really nurtures your curiosity, i just wish there where more of the same calibre...

She's Coming for you.

[nogodnomasters · 4/10 · 6 April 2021]

The film opens with a stop, drop, and roll teaser and then jumps to one year later. Four women rent a manor in Mabon at the time of the Mabon festival dedicated to their local deity. To no surprise the guests are the offerings.

The production has the typical creepy caretaker. The girls have to write down their worst fears. Note to self: write down baby kittens. The first incident takes place about an hour into the film which is typical for the genre. Girls seemed a bit shallow.

Guide: F-word. Sex. Brief partial nudity.

You might want to skip on this one if you enjoy horror movies...

[paul_haakonsen · 2/10 · 19 July 2021]

I must admit that I was lured in by the movie's cover, it's title and its interesting enough synopsis. And of course the fact that I hadn't already seen this 2020 movie also made me want to watch it.

And wow, "Sacrilege" was a swing and a miss. In fact, you could say that the movie's title actually summarize what this movie actually is.

The storyline told in "Sacrilege", as written by writer and director David Creed was just about as interesting as reading the phonebook from cover to cover. The storyline and script here just was unfathomably bland and uneventful.

As for the acting in "Sacrilege", well it was mediocre at best. So you will not find yourself in for an evening of Shakespearian thespian performances here, no, not even remotely. Some of the ladies that were in the movie just put on performances that made me cringe and curl my toes in disbelief.

While the storyline was devoid of anything overly interesting or captivating, then the movie was also lacking things that were even remotely scary.

This movie was, essentially just about a group of people that came to crash hard on some bad hallucinatory weed, and then writer and director David Creed tried to lace it with some religious undertones.

For a horror movie then "Sacrilege" was a bland and boring movie.

My rating of "Sacrilege" lands on a two out of ten stars. I managed to sit through the entire ordeal, hoping that the movie would become better along the way. But it just never did. And the ending of the movie just felt like a slap in my face for having sat through about an hour and a half of absolute boredom.

Laughably bad

[HotMamaTaylor · 2/10 · 17 March 2020]

I don't know who's giving this film good reviews..it was awful. The bar for British horror is clearly not set very high going by how well received it been by some reviewers. The film has a very promising opening sequence but it very quickly goes downhill with woefully written dialogue, not the best acting (though how much of that is down how the cast were directed to perform) and a predictable sparse over-trodden storyline. The main cast are all 'hot' young women with little thought taken to giving them any kind of character other than the superficial female stereotypes. I take it that this is the first movie from this director/screenwriter so I will cut them some slack (I gave two stars rather than the one it really merits) but they really need to do their background work on how women actually behave and interact with each other if they ever want their films to be taken seriously. It would be a passable movie if made in 1974 but not 2020. Come on get your act together you can do better than this...

Waste of opportunity

[iamkeysersoze-13228 · 6 March 2020]

Sacriledge is a film i really tried to like but it was a disaster. I understand independent and low budget films can only do so much with story, budgets, location etc. but I feel like even if it had everything it could afford it would still struggle.

The first twenty minute is the hardest to get through. I think that's because of the actors. They come off as first time actors (not in a good way), so the depth to their roles are limited. However all of their actors get better as the film progresses along.

The film is not even 80 minutes and whilst pacing isn't an issue at all. It has a story which doesn't have much meat to it and an abrupt ending which makes you feel like you just wasted your time.

However there are some aspects to like. The score was great and the directing was surprisingly good. The horror aspect is there but sometimes it's barely reaches the quality of amateurish. It has a few decent moments in terms of horror but doesn't execute them well.

I did enjoy it once the film got going and with the budget it had, it did do a decent job. The effects were decent mostly.

It just overall goes nowhere and it just feels like a movie you will find on the horror channel. It's one to avoid.

Not Interesting

[Samisafan · 2/10 · 20 March 2021]

This movie definitely had the ability to be a bit of fun, but it just becomes very boring very quickly.

When watching movies with low budgets, you have to leave room to appreciate the movie for the story, the acting, originality, etc. But this movie doesn't really have any of that. It's very slow, and basically nothing happens in the first hour of the movie, save a couple of things that the characters brush off.

I think this movie deserves more than one star because, after all, they did *try* to make something happen here, the actors weren't terrible, and even though this movie is pretty bad, there are worse movies out there.

Nope

[nimitz541 · 1/10 · 17 March 2021]

If this is good british horror, i'd hate to see the bad british horror.

Terrible acting, terrible cast, dialog seems written by an art scool dropout.

There are plenty of better films with the same story.

Awful. Just awful. AVOID.

[adyworth · 1/10 · 9 March 2020]

I'm not usually compelled to write reviews but this film is worthy of special mention. Quite simply the worst, most amatuerish, poorly acted and woefully written film I have seen in a VERY long time. And yes. I've seen Cats. Not one single redeeming feature can be found in this. Is this a spoof? Surely someone somewhere is pulling my chain with this? Laughable characters in laughable situations taking laughable actions. Written by an imbecile for imbeciles. I feel cheated that 83mins of my time was spent watching this. I NEVER leave the cinema. I have learnt my lesson now. From now on I'll be a walker. Some things just deserve derision. I feel a fool. You got me. And that is the real Sacrilege.

Another off we go to the woods!

[john-dav · 1/10 · 28 June 2021]

How many times can they rework this dead donkey?

Friends - family - office mates - weekend warriors, you name it. They all go off to the woods and meet up with... you guessed it Zombies, or Manic Bikers, or as in this case Cult followers. What a waste of effort and there wasn't much of that either.

Do yourself a favour and go and watch someone painting their fence.

What a waste of my time

[twizted6666 · 1/10 · 12 March 2020]

This movie is absolutely diabolical, the cast are completely talentless, the writing is awful and dialogue is atrocious... How this ever made it onto the big screen is a complete mystery, I guess it's not what you can do, it's who you know

Good British Folk Horror

[Pairic · 8/10 · 6 March 2020]

Sacrilege: Four old friends with a complicated relationship head off from Bristol for a weekend at a country lodge. The women ignore the warning signs: 1 a taciturn, creepy groundsman (Rory Wilton) with antlers on the front of jeep; 2 a cannabis grow house in a shed adjacent to their lodge (who would leave it unlocked?); 3 a hitchhiker (Jon Glasgow) invites them along to a Pagan Festival but an old woman (Emma Spurgin Hussey) warns them to leave "before the Ritual is completed". But these twenty somethings act like teens and stay. The Festival itself opens with solemn intonations from a priest (Ian Champion) who asks those present to write down their fears and cast them in a fire. He offers praise to the Goddess, a figure made from twigs and a deer skull with full antlers. But then the party starts and everyone dances and drinks. After wards the women have visions of what they fear most: Trish (Emily Wyatt) bugs; Kayla (Tamarin Payne) a crazed violent stalker; Stacey (Naomi Willow) growing old; Blake (Sian Abrahams) a savage dog. They put it down to the weed they smoked. Then things start to turn strange, the visions become even more disturbing, violent deaths occur.

A worthy addition to the British Folk Horror Canon this film shifts the focus to the South-West of England where seemingly friendly locals turn out to be more than just weekend Pagans. The deaths scenes are quite disturbing as character are spiked through the head and impaled on antlers but even in the opening scene a previous victim bursts into flames. The woods are threatening both at night and by day, looking quite primeval and exuding a sense of threat. But most frightening of all perhaps are the villagers and farmers gathered together wearing animal masks, accompanied by their Wicker Goddess. From the lack of ooo-arrs you know they're not there to drink cider. Some good acting from the four weekenders and Champion as the sinister priest. Writer/Director David Creed does a lot with with a low budget in his directorial debut. 7.5/10

Decent British debut to the horror genre

[ViggotheKarpathian · 7/10 · 8 March 2020]

Worth remembering that this is s debut film from an independent film maker so you are not going to get dazzling CGI effects you would associate with major studios but that said I thought for the most part the photography was handled well and there's a recurring motif of pine trees giving an icy, introverted feel much in a similar vein to the much longer and higher budget Midsommar. Credit is also due to the soundtrack which adds a significant part to the suspense and build up of tension in the film.

General tone is Hollyoaks meets Wickerman which may not be everyone's cup of tea but the lead character's backstory (a survivor of a vicious sexual assault) provides more than adequate material for you to feel invested in how her story progresses. It was also refreshing that the main protagonist was a queer woman who through the progress of the weekend gradually reestablishes a relationship with an old flame. There a number of unsettling moments and one of the character's fear of old age yields a genuinely spine tingling moment.

I don't say this of many films but I feel that this would have benefited from being a much longer film. The main problem I had with the film was that most of the characters seemed rather underwritten and I feel the horror would have been that much more effective if there was more time to work in character motivation. One glaring example is the older lady who despite being part of the cult seems to be kindly disposed to towards the protagonists and keen to help warn them and provide them with advice - why would she do this and wouldn't she be risking the cult's displeasure in doing so. There is no sense of why she is motivated to help or any sense of any risk or danger to her personally and it seems that she was only used as an over telegraphed plot device which was a sadly wasted opportunity. It was also quite easy to predict that the young make hitchhiker was up to no good but again he exists as a wafer thin plot device. The strength of the relationship between the two leads was key to their eventual survival but unfortunately you never really get a the full idea of how strong their bond was pre and post the re-kindling of their relationship, indeed it would have been interesting to explore female connection between the group as a whole and too see how that would have acted as a majikal force running as an antagonist to the dark spell that had been cast on them.

Had the film had more running time it could have explored these under utilised characters and added a a few more elements to add to the build up of suspense. As the film does not (thankfully) rely on cheap jump scares I feel that that is an important thing to note.

The ending was a little too abrupt for my liking . I think the message was a very worthy and moving one for any one who has survived trauma and abuse which is why I was disappointed that this final segment was far too short (and indeed building this lead story at early segments in the film would have rendered this far more powerful) Really we needed to have had a far greater feeling of her being in jeopardy her internal and external struggle which would have afforded a much greater sense of relief at her final get away.

There are a lot of genuinely good ideas and themes in this film and along with a fresh British cast and stunning photography makes this a worthy and decent debut in the horror genre.

Absolutely awful

[jacki_gosling · 1/10 · 8 March 2020]

Please do not waste your time, this is quite possibly the worst film I've ever seen! Acting was terrible, total lack of plot, and the ending was so bad it was actually laughable. Came out in disbelief that this even made it to the cinema. Not sure if other reviewers were watching the same film!

Not "Fun Trainwreck" Bad, Just Actually Bad

[saturnine23 · 2/10 · 3 July 2021]

Looking for a schlocky horror movie for some dumb laughs and "Don't go in the basement, you idiot!" moments?

THIS IS NOT IT. AVOID.

Aside from a few gorgeous helicopter shots that probably cost half the film's budget (and they really milk 'em every chance they get), there's really nothing redeeming about this. You won't get this hour and a half of your life back. Please heed my words and don't let my sacrifice be in vain 🙏🏻

Side note: as an actual pagan, I haven't once been invited to wear a bark mask and hold a torch as part of an intimidating silent mob. Please contact me, I'm available and eager.

Sacrilege

[baspep · 1/10 · 11 March 2020]

That this film made it to the cinema was sacrilege!!! My OH said if we had been watching at home he would have turned it off.

Not as bad as people are saying

[WankerReviews · 3/10 · 18 March 2021]

A group of women vacation in a house in the middle of nowhere, and soon their biggest fears come to life.

Not as bad as people are making it out to be. It's deff not a good movie but easy to sit through. The acting is passable except when the women are trying to act scared during freak out scenes. They weren't convincing. The movie is not scary and you don't care about any of the characters. There was one scene involving a dog chasing someone that was good, especially when the dog was inside in the car. That was freaky. The opening scene is also decent. Ending is confusing.

Definitely something going on here.

[antharris-08421 · 1/10 · 11 March 2020]

This would of bin good if was on YouTube, no strong story behind it just kind of byed the time kind of film. The girls are love looking but they made them very annoying, sorry for the bad review no bad in it. All the best for the next one.

Don't go to festivals

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 18 March 2021]

You know, if someone tells you that you need to go to a solstice party, I hope that movies have taught you to avoid them. Not the protagonists of this film, who have gone from trying to get to a music festival and end up being sacrificed to a pagan goddess who can sense their greatest fears and make them true. As The Verve once sang, "Now the drugs don't work. They just make you worse."

Written and directed by David Creed, this has the kind of running time we like - 74 minutes - and plenty of gore, which we also appreciate.

I wish there was more originality here. It's professionally made, has a same sex couple without making a big deal about it and moves quickly enough. But it left me wanting more. Then again, it's Creed's first full-length film, so here's hoping he learns and grows from this and makes his next attempt something truly great.

Skip. Skip. Skip.

[wandernn1-81-683274 · 2/10 · 22 October 2022]

As another reviewer said, you might want to skip this one if you enjoy horror movies. It is terrible. So 4 friends rent some country house and get invited to a PAGAN WEED FESTIVAL or some nonsense like this , with a ritual that involves PAGAN dancing and idol worship. And during the ritual dance, people strip down to....well of course, BRAS/Bikini tops and keep their pants on. Wow. How disappointing.

Not even as entertaining as Piranha 3D, this movie Sacrilege is horrible, dull, not scary. It's just sad. Depressing! I mean come on for a 2020 movie? Lets get some perspective.

Like many others of the genre, I don't even get how some of these turds get made. 2/10.

Did you see Midsommar or The Wicker Man?

[selfdestructo · 1/10 · 16 March 2022]

Yeah, so did this guy. Only Sacrilege is the rinky dinkiest, shallowest, grade-D knockoff of those films. Brought to you from England!

Four dingy chicks spontaneously decide to take a weekend getaway up into the woods to a remote cabin. One chick wronged another chick, so the two other chicks hate her. Let's invite her along! Offended I keep calling them chicks? I'd say all four are 30-somethings, constantly dressed for a flash aerobicize, act like giggly schoolgirls, come off as shallow and spoiled, and absolutely think they are funnier and more charming than they actually are. Cut me some slack.

One chick has to set time aside to create "content" for her social media feeds. This consists 100% of selfies of her face. In the car, in the bathroom, in the bed, outside while being leered at by the creepy groundskeeper. Wow... the content! I'm sure she's got one thrilling Instagram page. Modern horror alert: We have a lesbian relationship. They sleep together, and any shred of nudity is obscured. For that matter, the entire running time skirts the skin.

So they pick up a hitchhiker ("What's the worst that can happen?" is actually uttered), who talks them into going to some pagan ritual, where our stars become the town's latest sacrifices. This whole process starts when the girls submit their greatest fears (oh boy, these are some weak fears), and are confronted with them for the remainder of the picture. SPOILER: One girl dies via accidental CGI garden shears through the head, another is murdered via car grill antlers, and one girl drinks bleach(!) because she is spitting out ticks, and survives. I'm actually not sure this curse is built to kill off any of these victims. Sheer stupidity (and murder!) seem to be the common factors.

MORE SPOILERS: Just when you think things can't get any dumber, two chicks try to leave town, and are met by a small mob with torches. One chick fights her imaginary abusive ex-boyfriend, then shoots the town's mock deity with a flare gun, and the mob parts to let them through! How anything in this movie is plausible, well, you've got me. It's horror for dummies, made by dummies. Don't believe me? Check out the DVD interview with the director and producer. I thought this movie said nothing. These two give you, (not) surprisingly, even less substance, discussing all things trivial and dull, over 16+ minutes.

Good british old fashioned horror

[designlightingsolutions · 9/10 · 8 March 2020]

Saw the trailer and looked good but on a low budget and was pleasantly surprised good storyline and writing and acting thoroughly recommend British horror movie at its best

Great low budget film

[lindagale-19421 · 7/10 · 8 March 2020]

If you like to support new ventures and entrepreneurial people then you should go and see this film The plot is great and the actresses are very engaging and believable.

Go and support this film and give great encouragement to independent film Companies. Some great effects and great location shoots.

Face your Fear!

Lots of trees

[nihilist86 · 2/10 · 18 May 2023]

I think I generously gave this 2 stars simply due to the redeeming quality all the stock footage of forests. The woods were lovely and without them, this movie would have about 45 mins less in run time and audience enjoyment. I think I hit fast forward just to bypass the horrible dialogue, acting, and whatever plot was available just to get to more greenery!

I mean, you might as well pause for the nudity, but really, it's not that great either. Stick to "Plank Face" if you're looking for a REALLY good, bad movie with decent gratuitous nudity and a better (not by much) plot. Enjoy hating this movie as much as me!

Embarrassingly so bad.

[emmakamil · 1/10 · 6 February 2022]

First of all the acting was so bad, so cringe to watch it, bad casting. Don't waste your time to watch ithis movie, just skip it. That's the reason why this movie is straight released to Amazon prime.