Directed By Christopher Smith

Starring – Jena Malone, Danny Huston, Ian Pirie

The Plot – Grace (Malone), a young eye doctor, is summoned to a remote convent in Scotland after the alleged suicide of her priest brother. Distrusting the Church’s account, Grace tries to find out what really happened with the help of Vatican priest Father Romero (Huston). As she explores the convent’s sepulchral cloisters, and the wild cliffs and windswept beaches nearby, she uncovers not only murder and sacrilege, but a disturbing truth about her own past which brings long-buried trauma to the surface.

Rated R for action/violence throughout and adult language

(1) Consecration – Official Trailer | HD | IFC Films – YouTube

POSITIVES

Without question, Smith is the film’s single biggest triumph and simultaneously its greatest tragedy under the same umbrella. I say this because his desire to conjure a thickness in atmospheric ambiance over timely and telegraphed jump scares helps to supplant not only a maturity in his approach to such an effective direction, but also one that is unfortunately wasted in a film that he’s too good to be a part of. This is my first experience with the work of Smith, but it’s already crystal clear that his balance of provocative imagery amongst religious iconography, and his complexity among lighting, both natural and manufactured, supplants an ominously forebodding influence over the film’s dominant setting, in turn emitting the creepiness and isolation factor of the church that harvests seamlessly within hallways of unnerving tranquility. In addition to this, the work of Jena Malone is much appreciated in serving as the driving force of the narrative, bringing with her a biting performance that often makes her a wild card among the stuffy surroundings of the church. It’s remarkable that this film was given a PG rating because Malone often exploits free range over the dispersement of her emotions, in turn gifting us a protagonist who is every bit brave as she is curious, but without feeling arrogantly damaging to the plot such as Nicolas Cage in the remake of “The Wicker Man”. Instead, Malone expands her capabilities with the duration of the script, zeroing in on the evolution of the character that feels miles from where she started, despite an 85 minute run time that limits such possibilities.

NEGATIVES

The run time also feels like a fitting starting point to the laundry list of complaints that I have for the film, as a bland and lifeless script leaves so much compromised straining to the execution of the film’s pacing, leading to a boring engagement that loses more interest with each passing scene or sequence. This immediately begins with an introduction of inevitible foreshadowing, where the climax between characters is hinted upon to give audiences a sign of what’s to come. The problem in this instance is that like a majority of other foreshadowing sequences, this one also gives away far too much in the corresponding visuals, leaving less than little remaining on the table of speculation for where the evolution of the story will take us. So the twists fall flat, despite committing themselves to feeling like landmark surprises, and the imagery of the engagement, involving a nun holding a gun to our central protagonist, unintentionally influences a hilarious captivation to the integrity of the scene, as the first of many instances throughout the film that reaches this tonal inferiority. It’s also plucked with contrivances that grow all the more alarming the more we learn about the direction of the narrative. There’s plot holes that the film never even tries to explain, while other moments directly contradicting what it previously conveyed in the prior sequence, cementing a disjointed enveloping that at the very least makes it difficult to even invest yourself for a single solitary minute. In addition to this, the film isn’t even remotely scary, despite the measures of its aforementioned imagery capably setting the stage for some scenes that really could’ve supplanted something special. To speak clearly, the thrills themselves aren’t bad, they’re virtually non-existent, catering to scenes that go nowhere despite increasing tensions in character interactions, leaving us with no satisfying pay-offs throughout, despite the freedom in rating that could’ve elicited at the very least some titliating gore for the cause. There’s also a feeling of post-production influence with the characteristics of some strange sequences that feel like a product of a production studio looking to hammer their point home. This can be found in the interrogation sequences, where characters basically just echo what just transpired in the previous scene. The strange aspect of these moments is the influence of a male detective character who feels like he was edited in to the sequence off-screen, due to the complete lack of interaction that any of the characters have with him in the context of his leading investigation.

OVERALL
“Consecration” wastes away some alluring atmospheric elements and an unrestrained performance by Malone, in favor of a dull and lifeless unraveling that is plagued, among other things, by predictability. The thrill-less, scare-less returns of its material makes it easier to forget, but the sloppiness in post-production reshapes leaves it tougher to forgive, with another installment to the growing pile of humiliating horror returns that seems to grow larger by the week.

My Grade: 3/10 or F