Movie Review: The Sacrifice Game

Home invasions are inherently frightening acts. It’s not that being attacked by a killer or group of killers would be a treat in any other context, but having the supposed comfort and safety of your house destroyed seemingly at random is a particularly unnerving thought. This has been exploited to great affect by several horror films (perhaps most effectively by Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers) and now The Sacrifice Game takes the concept to a girl’s boarding school in which 2 pupils and 2 staff members remain behind over the Christmas break, like a messed-up inverse to Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers.

The similarities don’t end there, with both movies utilizing a retro aesthetic and both featuring a lead character who is forced to stay at school by their parents at the last minute. Things take a very different turn after that however, when students Clara (Georgia Acken) and Samantha (Madison Baines) have their dinner preparations with teacher Rose (Chloë Levine) interrupted by the arrival of four strangers, whose behavior makes them seem suspiciously like the serial killers the group has been hearing about in the news. Rose’s boyfriend and fellow staff member Jimmy (Gus Kenworthy) returns from town to discover the trio trying to evade capture only to be caught himself. The killers round them all up and hold them captive around the dinner table where they proceed to explain that their crime spree has all been in service of a ritual they plan to perform that night at the school, never noticing that Clara seems strangely unbothered by everything occurring around her.

Director Jenn Wexler nails the old-school, grindhouse horror vibe she is aiming for here, with the movie feeling convincingly like it could have come out decades ago. Her script with co-writer Sean Redlitz is a little less successful, but still largely does what it needs to do in getting us from point A to point B and contains a few interesting twists on the formula. It just would have been nice if it hadn’t been so easy to see them coming, one really big one in particular. The acting can also be a tad uneven, though no one outright embarrasses themselves, and Mena Massoud, Olivia Scott Welch, Derek Johns, and Laurent Pitre are more than creepy enough as the four villains. The sheer viciousness they display keeps the suspense high for much of the movie, though that can’t be maintained as a result of the aforementioned twist. The Sacrifice Game is hardly perfect but is till a good sophomore effort by Wexler, who shows a lot of promise here. With a bigger budget and a little more script refinement I could see her producing something truly special. Horror fans will still find much to enjoy here though. ★★★