“Let me tell you a story. It’s not prayers that get Gods attention, ohhh, no. It’s sacrifice. »

Blackvale School for Girls, 1971. It’s bad enough that boarding school students Samantha (Madison Baines) and Clara (Georgia Acken) can’t go home for the vacations, but things take a deadly turn when a gang of cult killers arrive at their door – just in time for Christmas.

With The Sacrifice Game, Jenn Wexler delivers a rather classic horror thriller, while pushing the genre into little-explored corners. A not-so-classic Christmas movie. 😉

Going beyond the genre

Horror thrillers are legion. But few of them deviate from the guideline or take the surprise a step further. The good guys are always the big winners and the bad guys are always punished, no matter who the bad guys are. 

But The Sacrifice Game dares to diverge slightly. Obviously, it will be difficult to talk about these genre divergences without divulging the punchlines. So I’m going to focus instead on the screenplay and some of the acting. 

Without having produced an impressive screenplay, Wexler and Redlitz have put together a story that remains credible (in a universe where demons can exist, of course) despite a few shortcuts that are quickly forgiven. Why do we forgive these few illogicalities? Because the movie remains logical as a whole, and delivers on its promise of excitement and violence. 

As for the actors, we give an A+ to young Georgia Acken, who plays the young teenage outcast to perfection. Because in these kinds of movies about black magic and demons, you need an outcast girl. 😆

Also noteworthy are the fine performances by Chloë Levine and Olivia Scott Welch, who we’re so eager to see tortured in return…

80’s style

Stuck in a boarding school for the vacations, Samantha and Clara’s silent nights turn deadly as a murderous gang attacks their Christmas. The film is set in the 70s, and the cinematography captures the era well, with photography reminiscent of the classics of the time. 

I mentioned some of the details we were prepared to forgive a little earlier. One of these details relates to the look of the characters. It looks more like the ’80s than the ’70s. But as I said, it’s more about the small details that come through in a film of this kind. 

The location chosen to represent this school is simply magnificent, and lends itself perfectly to the film’s creepiness. These old buildings have a spooky quality even without the addition of visual effects. 

As for the frankly overly clichéd style of the main villain, Jude (Mena Massoud), we’ll take a rain check. The actor isn’t particularly bad, but he’s not good enough to make this look work. He looks a bit too much like a cliché. But I guess we can overlook that, given the ending he gets.

A little more…

So there are films we watch to grow up, to question ourselves intellectually, and there are those made to be cool. The Sacrifice Game falls into the latter category, and it delivers. 

The violence isn’t particularly graphic, but it does strike the imagination. In fact, the absurd belief craze of the 70s seems to be making a comeback in the 2020s. So this film comes at an opportune moment. 

The Sacrifice Game will be available on Shudder as of December 8, 2023.

Trailer