CONSECRATION (2023)
a review by Evan Landon
It is always easy to make a horror movie out of religious practices. By that, I mean, the things in most organized religions, there is a case of how a person's soul is much more fragile than the corporeal body. You can see it in such movies as Rosemary's Baby, the entire The Conjuring or Exorcist franchises, probably 40-50% of horror movies, probably more, etc. But what is the link between religion and horror?
Instead of writing an essay that some prick from University of Phoenix (apologies UoP students) will rip off to pass their final essay, I will just focus on 2023's Consecration.
You can request a well made essay later in the dm's though.
Our interest in the occult of religions begs the question of what it is to be a human being; I mean, I am sure my beautiful cat, Sasha, couldn't give a fuck less about metaphysics. What we do, as human beings, is ask the question of what happened before, &/or what will happen after. Thus, our want/need to explore such topics of what we understand, or what we have been bred over time to understand. I might be taking this too deep.
This 2023 supernatural horror-thriller is set in the Scotland, on the Isle of Skye, which does give a lot to the setting and the overall mystique of the atmosphere; even though you are not there on the Moors, you know that it is right outside the doors (hehe) which also plays into the plot itself. It opens with a nun holding a gun to a random woman named “Grace” to which she starts to have weird flashbacks of nuns falling off of a cliff. What is strange is that her brother was found dead from the same kind of jump in her dreams and she goes to investigate. Upon going to investigate, she finds more and more about her estranged brother and the convent itself.
I won't give up anymore of the ghost, but it unravels very quickly & thus lets itself become nothing more than a quick “nun horror” movie that seems to be plaguing our mainstream horror movies. It's strange how very little of plot can send little or nothing as far as a story just to make a film that is easily forgettable.
It does have some good qualities though; it is definitely not under budget with the production, as it spent most of its $2 million budget on wandering around, trying to figure out a mystery that makes little to no sense. Jena Malone is always amazing to me, so I will always buy a ticket and Danny Huston is compelling as an actor in everything he does. It doesn't really even pick up steam until the last 20 minutes, so I would suggest to just start there and skip a snoozefest.
It is extremely well shot, but not very well-paced, which kind of makes you think about what else you could be doing whilst watching it. Like I stated before, this trope is very tired, yet I do not think they will abandon themes such as these any time soon.
2 out of 5