 |
| Courtesy of IFC Midnight |
After the mercurial death of her priest brother, Grace (Jena
Malone affecting a British accent) ventures out to the Mount Savior Convent
deep within Scotland’s rocky terrain to get her own answers, leading her to the
usual discoveries involving a dysfunctional convent ruled by a domineering Mother
Superior who comes across as suspect immediately when she deprives Grace of her
belongings and tries to shield her from the truth. Doubting the convent’s version of the story,
she digs deeper and discovers a trail of ritualistic murder and an omnipresence
of supernatural evil which may or may not be linked to Grace herself. From here we get the usual candlelit warfare
between good and evil spirits while its main overqualified cast members Jena
Malone and Danny Huston are tragically underutilized.
Almost thirteen years later, the same shortcomings that
torpedoed Black Death are repeating themselves here with all the chips
in place but no game wins. For all of
its stately split-diopter widescreen cinematography and the pedigree of leading
cast members Jena Malone and Danny Huston, Consecration self-terminates
before the thing ever really gets to begin.
For a film that purports to be evoking the convent mania of Ken Russell’s
The Devils, this is every bit as dulling and spineless as The
Conjuring tie-in The Nun was.
Despite some strong and tense flashbacks involving Grace and her younger
brother being abused and caged up as children by their insane father, Consecration
is neither frightening nor engaging and kind of lays there like a dead
animal.
Picked up by IFC Midnight and Shudder who have recently put
out such gems as Hatching or Watcher, films that definitely did
live up to the reputation of both labels, Consecration for the initiated
and uninitiated is, yes, picturesque but otherwise a tedious yawn that
occasionally splatters blood but never lets loose on the mayhem, say, Paul
Verhoeven unleashed with Benedetta. All the ornate cinematography, editing and moody ambient music in the world can't disguise the fact that there's not that much of a story here let alone told in a way people won't get bored with.
Considering the fires actors Jena Malone and Danny Huston stoked
themselves in the past, with Malone’s unforgettable twisted makeup artist in The
Neon Demon to Danny Huston’s troubled hotshot Hollywood agent in ivansxtc,
one expects their talents to lend some credibility to Consecration, a
film that had all the ingredients in place to be a real dose of old-fashioned
nunsploitation. Unfortunately as a fan
of such fare as The Devils, Benedetta, Alucarda, Killer Nun and of
course The Exorcist as far as demonic hysterical horror films go, Consecration
barely musters up a whimper before it withers up and dies a quiet
death.
--Andrew Kotwicki
