The Sacrament (2013) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by DirkH ½ 82

  There is something very, very wrong with this film and it pisses me off to an almost unimaginable level. I wash my hands off Ti West. He has made one fantastic film, the rest I have seen have been either mediocre or very bad.

  But this one, well this one is simply repulsive.

  Not because it is a gratuitous, gore riddled bloodbath, but because of deeper, more ethical reasons.

  First something else. For someone who claims to be a genre director, Mr. West seems to know fuck all about the found footage genre. Not that this is a found footage film per se, it is an episode in a news program, but it does use all the trappings and tropes…

• Review by Eli Hayes 7

  Hoop-Tober, Film 8 of 31:

  At the end of the this film's credits, the screen reads...

  "The characters and incidents portrayed and the names herein are fictitious, and any similarity of the name, character of history of any person is entirely coincidental and unintentional."

  Hmm... really? You're gonna go that route, guys?

  Because here's the thing: this movie genuinely scared the shit out of me. It's a horrifying film, probably one of the more frightening experiences I've had watching any horror film released over the course of the past, say, five years (aside from Franck Khalfoun's Maniac remake and a few others); it's true horror, no jump scares, ghosts, haunted houses, demonic possession, nothing supernatural. It's realistic horror, grounded in…

• Review by davidehrlich ★ 2

  sometimes bad films happen to good people. onwards and upwards.

• Review by SilentDawn ★★★ 7

  Needless to say, I'm a fan of Ti West. The House of the Devil is a horror masterpiece that remains not just one of my all-time favorite horror films, but one of my favorite films in general. The Innkeepers is a solid and subtle chiller, built on the foundations of both comedy and quiet scares. And now, The Sacrament.

  Maybe its just that Ti's films work for me or that he just happens to make films that I find interesting, but I couldn't keep my eyes off the screen during The Sacrament. It's a riveting, tense, disturbing, and frightening horror film, one comprised of evil characters and an oppressive atmosphere and not of jump-scares and bloody violence. Make no mistake,…

• Review by ༘ ade ༘ ★★½ 1

  Ehhh.. Nah ✋

  What in the actual fuck was that??
  I'm shocked that Vice news would even let their name be associated with in this film. What the heckkkk

• Review by Ian West ★★★★½ 4

  Stumbling into a situation like the characters do in this is my worst nightmare.

• Review by Meli🐢🌻🎧 ★★★½ 2

  If I had known that this was based on the Jonestown massacre I would have thought twice before watching it. My mom always says “there are certain things that you’ll never have the age to know about”, and oh man I wish I had listened to her before I dig into the rabbit hole and listened to the audio tapes of this horrible event. I didn’t even listen a quarter of it, but what I did hear will always trigger a big amount of sadness in me every time I think about it.

  This movie triggered that. I got that it was based on Jonestown as soon as it started but I just thought it was going to be barely…

• Review by Travis Lytle ★★ 5

  Though there are one or two moments of sound, solid dread in Ti West's "The Sacrament," the film is comprised of such nonsensical plotting, insufferable characters, and ridiculous character motivations and actions that it is hard to take the film's worthy qualities seriously. The horror film grow from desire to frighten, unnerve, and disturb, but its narrative and characters cancel out any effective horror energy the film may try to generate.

  Focusing on a documentary crew making a film about a Jonestown-like cult, "The Sacrament" is a polished collection of found footage moments detailing the cult's strangeness. That strangeness is inauthentic and forced, and the found footage gimmick is dressed up with a score and conventional editing that undercuts its…

• Review by Cinemonster ★★½ 4

  Hooptober 9 1/34

  A film that would probably be more effective without Jonestown awareness, it still boasts some tense and creepy moments and a couple of good performances (Gene Jones, especially).

  Characters, for the most part, are thumbnail sketches which doesn't lead to much feeling for the bulk of them.

  Tech merits are ok, but there is a weird swing between found footage sequences and traditional shots that creates some disengagement.

  I've certainly seen better and worse from Ti, but it is worth a watch for a few sequences and Jones' turn.

• Review by 𝑀𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑠 ½

  Nonsensical and morally wrong reasons for continuing filming, music to add atmosphere and tension, echoey screaming effects of the dying, layered voice-over to scenes where the character does not have a mic and the camera is elsewhere, edits and angles that take you out of the film and make you question the cuts, blah blah blah ... oh it must be another badly replicated 'found footage' film ... sorry Ti West, I ain't drinking your Kool-Aid.

• Review by Acoucalancha ★★★½ 4

  Creepy Caroline: "We have nothing to hide."

  Midsommar but more realistic and thought-provoking. I can't say the found footage format really made this story any better or scarier, it could've been made the old fashioned way and be just as good. I was fully captivated and intrigued from beginning to end, nothing new really but I always find cult movies to be fascinating and this one sticks out from the rest. Good little interviews with the folk that felt very grounded and almost sold me at the idea of going to live over there... after that wild third act, i'll pass! Very unsettling, gruesome gory kills, very dark and tragic, and one hell of a strong performance from Gene Jones as Father.

  Ti West Ranked

• Review by Cole ★★★★

  Ti West normally makes fun movies.

  Yeah, his movies are scary, but they're total party flicks. They revel in this old school level of camp and playfulness, teasing the audience throughout. They leave you screaming with a smile on your face.

  The Sacrament is not a fun movie.

  The Sacrament is one of the bleakest, ugliest and most joyless films I have ever seen. The Sacrament is a film that grabs you by the heat and drags you into into the deepest, darkness recesses of human depravity and evil and refuses to ever hold back. The Sacrament is a film that is all too real, using the found footage conceit to make the audience that much closer to the horrors…