The Sacrament
Blu-ray l DVD l Instant l Netflix
Directed by Ti West
Written by Ti West
Starring Joe Swanberg, AJ Bowen, Gene Jones, Amy Seimetz, and Kentucker Audley
Magnet Productions
Rated R | 99 Minutes
Release Date: May 1, 2014 (U.S.)

It is such a welcome feeling to a horror nut like me to watch a movie and actually feel unnerved and uncomfortable. That was how I felt just minutes into Ti West‘s The Sacrament. In a genre as cliché driven as horror, ominous foreshadowing is par for the course. “Let’s investigate,” “I have a bad feeling about this,” “I’ll be right back”… we’ve seen it all before. But there’s something about real-life plausible situations that can be much scarier than possessed dolls and masked killers. Enter Eden Parish.

Patrick (Kentucker Audley) works for Vice, a multimedia company from New York that specializes in controversial stories mainstream news outlets won’t cover. His sister Caroline (Amy Seimetz) is a recovering addict who joins a reclusive parish that ups and leaves the U.S. to an undisclosed location outside of the U.S. This seems like the perfect story for Vice so Patrick, lead reporter Sam (AJ Bowen), and cameraman Jake (Joe Swanberg) set out via helicopter to meet Caroline and the residents of the “heaven on earth” that is Eden Parish.