80 - The Sacrament

    A trio of indie journalists go to a religious cult’s camp as part of an effort to see a relative, and to report on the secretive society.  Things get weird and bad.
    Frankly, I had higher hopes for this one.  I really love The Innkeepers.  I need to re-watch House of the Devil.  And I plan on watching Roost soon.  There’s generally a lot of fertile ground to be covered when it comes to cults.  And I’ve never seen a movie based on the Jim Jones stuff.
    There are two primary failings that this has.  First, the format just doesn’t feel right.  I don’t mind found-footage stuff if it’s done well.  Here, it would actually be better if the movie wasn’t handled as found-footage.  Most of the framing and photography is actually too good, and it becomes a weird sticking point; why do we get this great steady shot for some sequences, then we get a hand-held shaky-cam for another?  The other failing is that the story follows the Jim Jones massacre too closely.
    There’s a very slow wind-up to the story.  It takes about half an hour before things start to fall into place.  Even as we know what’s about to happen, what makes the movie effective is how unflinching it is in documenting it.  It does a good job of putting a more concrete face on the Jim Jones stuff.