If I received a dollar for every religious horror flick that’s been released since William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, I would be… Well, let’s face it, I would still probably be writing this review – but from a yacht somewhere in the Caribbean, as opposed to a Los Angeles home I can barely afford. Christopher Smith’s latest addition to the genre, the brief/inconsequential Consecration, is the umpteenth attempt to resuscitate the genre, but alas, at this point, no filmmaker can exorcise the demon of tedium when it comes to (un)holy cinematic spook-fests.
When Grace’s (Jena Malone) brother allegedly commits suicide at a convent, she is understandably torn up. “My brother wouldn’t kill anyone,” she says confidently, seemingly uninterested in religion, “nor would he kill himself.” Grace travels to the remote Scottish convent, presided over by the couldn’t-be-more-obviously-evil Mother Superior (Janet Suzman). After being told that a demon murdered her sibling, Grace begins to experience visions: of her dead brother warning her, of nuns plunging to their deaths from the same cliff, of her own childhood, and of times more ancient.
Father Romero (Danny Huston) is sent from the Vatican to investigate. Grace delves deeper into her past, reading the dead brother’s childhood notes, written in an intricate coded language. She discovers secret hideouts with other nuns. There are more shenanigans not worthy of description here. “The visions are memories from your past and your future,” she’s told vaguely. It all leads to a twist ending that anyone who has seen a movie will most likely predict from the start.
Janet Suzman as the ominous Mother Superior walks the London streets in Consecration, bringing an unsettling presence from the convent into the modern world.
“…after being told that a demon murdered her sibling, Grace begins to experience visions…”
Shabbily structured, with barely any tension, characterization, scares, or thematic depth, Consecration, due to its utter lack of inspiration, loses the audience’s concentration within minutes, and may even lead to constipation (okay, maybe not the last part, but you get my drift). The film’s atmospheric and moodily shot by cinematographers Rob Hart and Shaun Mone, but the plot’s messy and convoluted, rushing when it needs to slow down, and regurgitating age-old tropes when it should speed the f**k up.
Little here makes sense. The plethora of exposition doesn’t help explain things or liven up the plot. Grace is pissed at the nuns, calls them liars, then – in the same breath – sits to eat with them. She loses consciousness over and over again. The dialogue couldn’t be more on-the-nose if it tried: “As we speak, the battle is raging between God and Satan, between the light and the darkness,” Mother Superior says at one point. Don’t get me started on that ridiculous finale – predictable it may be, but that doesn’t make it any less goofy.
The always-reliable Jena Malone inhabits her character; she’s the saving grace of the film, her committed performance just accentuating how silly everything else is. I championed Smith’s previous efforts: the criminally underrated Severance, Triangle, and Black Death. I can’t, in all good faith, recommend this one. So help me God.
"…Jena Malone inhabits her character..."
