Sacrifice

source: Sacrifice

After seeing the trailer, I was hoping that Sacrifice would be sort of like a new-age take on The Wicker Man (the original, which is a masterpiece), or something along those lines. What I got was far from anything I'd call horror, and even as a drama-thriller it failed at nearly every cinematic bastion to hold my attention. Absolutely nothing about this movie was interesting, surprising, or shocking, and was the opposite of entertaining. The acting was painfully bland, the cinematography fails to bring subjects to light, and despite being on a picturesque Scottish isle, the settings are boring. In fact, the one word which could sum this entire movie up would be "boring". If you're like me and watch lots of horror and thriller movies, you've seen this movie before and all of the predictable clichés in it. Skip it and save your time.

Sacrifice is the story of an American doctor who moves to Wales with her husband. Unable to have children, the couple move back to the husband's homeland, the Shetland Islands, to adopt a child. When attempting to bury a dead horse, our hero discovers a dead body on her property, leading her onto a conspiracy of sacrificial practices dating back centuries. Is this all fairy-tale stuff or can she prove the men on this island continue the tradition to this day? As my title notes, this plot closely resembles the plot of "The Wicker Man": an outsider arrives on an island, begins to investigate mysterious happenings, and gets in trouble for their efforts. But unlike "The Wicker Man", this movie is far less enjoyable. I guess I'll start off with the positives. The setting is beautiful. I can watch those Welsh hills forever and the cliffside footage is stunning to look at. I also enjoyed seeing Rupert Graves in something. I stopped watching "Sherlock" a while back so it was nice to see him pop up. He's... okay in his role. I did enjoy the scene where he bashes that guy's head in with a rock, absolutely brutal! The rest of this though isn't great. The dialogue is extremely clunky; the screenwriters had no idea how to write good exposition. It all feels very forced and rushed. The average movie-goer can see this plot twist coming from a mile away. Within 20 minutes I knew what the remainder of the movie was going to be. The lighting, especially during the climax was horrendous. I couldn't even tell what was going on. And then just a lot of this plot didn't make sense to me. Why move your wife back to Scotland if you know she's in danger of being murdered by your father and his weird cult? Why would that lawyer use his real name when dealing with that family to take their sister and have her pretend to be his wife? Why did that fake computer tell the doctor in the beginning that the baby was positive for cocaine? We never even acknowledge this. There's a lot more that I have problems with but I've wasted enough time on this. I wouldn't recommend this movie. It's not good but it's not bad enough to be enjoyable to watch either. The pacing is slow and there's really nothing noteworthy to see here.

Beautifully shot, a great film to watch on a dark and stormy day at home all cuddled up. It's never super slow either, though from the beginning I prepared myself for some longer more slower parts but that definitely didn't happen. I love this lead actress! I truly believe she is intelligent and a Doctor whereas many actresses who play Doctors do not convince me and then I find myself distracted and unable to focus on the story. I could guess what was going on but I still wanted to keep watching because I was connected to the main characters. Satisfying ending with this film. It is worth the rental for sure. Afterward I felt like I'd been in Scotland/Ireland all weekend.

Wow. Just wow. Storyline wasn't bad. Plot holes aplenty. The accents, well even the BBC series Shetland has had maybe 5 people in all its seasons with an actual Shetland accent, this had none. One attempt at an accent (not sure what she was aiming for) was so bad I thought it was Irish. BUT the long distance shot of a motorway? At rush hour! Ummm a look at Google maps would have shown them there's no motorway on Unst. And a massive modern hospital? And the harbour that wasn't even Lerwick? Seriously its not that difficult. Also the pregnancy test scene has no resemblance to how that works in the NHS. JEEZ!

How did this movie get made? The shots are all set up really nice - but the plot is so boring. Honestly - nothing happens in the entire film. The dialogue is bad. Now - it starts off pretty good - but then it just filters into pure rubbish. This woman cannot have children - so she sort of faces her loss by solving this mystery about some pagan Scottish folk who kill pregnant woman - or something - but the movie is so slow and so boring - it's just not good at all. It's hard to care - when the plot is so boring. The film kind of tries hard to be 'method' - so people are people - and there isn't really good v evil - more than there is levels of corruption - and the film tries to give some characters a moral compass for dramatic purposes - but for whatever reason the character's moral compass just falls flat. It's not unbelievable - it's just hard to care about any of these people. it could be that the plot is so predictable - and there are basically no good reversals that make it worth watching. What happens can be seen a mile away - then it happens - and its boring.

Yeah, well. No. Not worth the watch. Sorry I did. Masonic Lodge type secrecy/murder. Whatever.

Unable to conceive, Dr. Tora Hamilton (Radha Mitchell) moves from the U.S. to the Shetland Isles where she and her husband intend to adopt a child. What Tora doesn't realise is that any character in a horror movie who visits a remote Scottish island where the locals are a bit shifty is destined to fall foul of a pagan cult still practising ancient rituals. Part The Wicker Man (obvs), part Silent Witness, this mediocre horror/thriller never surprises, from Tora's fraught with danger investigation of the corpse she unearths while burying a horse (it's okay… it's dead!), right down to the cliff-top finale that sees the main bad guy giving our heroine more than one chance to do him in (which she does). Everything plays out exactly as one would expect. Had writer/director Peter A. Dowling pushed the envelope a bit more—taken a few more risks—this could have been a far more effective flick; as it stands, it feels a bit like a made-for-TV movie-of-the-week.

Potential, and intrigue out of the gate, with nice location filming, panoramic vistas, and seascapes, but than, about 45 minutes in., it dawns on me, everything I liked, turns into a repetitive, derivative, skip in the record mess, and snooze. This is my first review on IMDb., one of the best web sites, I know of, for film buffs, and hope I am allowed to say IMDb...a treasure trove, which I rate a 10. I am required ten lines of text, which does not make since to me, because, I really don't have much more to say about the film., except, you may like Exreme Measures, Proxy, or Robin Cooks, Coma, better. I tried to write a review on NF., but I did not want to be the first one. So I had a general feeling of lethargy, and sedation, after watching this movie, and say again, it was aesthetically pleasing, for photography, and scenery., but the script, and story fizzled., and for me, the movie, as a whole, was a dud. Next please.

I really like Rupert Graves and I love the part of the world where this story is set (supposedly The Shetlands but actually filmed in Ireland)... but this film is so incredibly predictable that the viewer is constantly reminded of every other newcomer-to-town-discovers-sinister-cover-up movie that's every been made. How does a career-focused, city-girl American obstetrician possess the ability to operate an agricultural digger in her skill set? Upon discovering a dead horse, why wouldn't she just phone somebody or knock on the door of the farmer - rather than bury it? Why would she then jump into the hole she has dug? We got halfway through and decided life was too short to sit through the remainder of the increasingly ridiculous plot. Never getting that 45 minutes back... utterly dire. Do not waste your time.