This eye-gougingly derivative folk-horror outing arrives as a form of hex on anyone trying to advance women’s representation on screen. Its four final girls, running around in hitched-up vests with slogans such as “no bad days” and “lucky clover”, are so vacuous, annoying and faux-empowered that Sacrilege almost unwittingly comes across as an 83-minute attempt to discredit the Bechdel test.
“Here’s to the girls in stiletto shoes who make all the money and drink all the booze.” That’s the toast Kayla (Tamaryn Payne) and her pals Blake (Sian Abrahams) and Stacey (Naomi Willow) use to wash away bad news – that the evil mugger who beat Kayla into a coma is out on early release – and head off for a girls’ weekend to a remote country lodge. Even her cheating ex, the sulphurous Trish (Emily Wyatt), gets an invite. Once there, not only do they fail to clock the stag skull on their host’s Jeep grille, the one on the front door doesn’t ring any bells either.
Clutching hot cuppas and batting around cringey chat (“I thought we weren’t supposed to mention Ilfracombe!”), the ensemble is painfully stilted. But the four actors are scuppered by debut writer-director David Creed’s hollow script – which is not only marked by lazy characterisation (the plaid-shirt-wearing, van-driving Blake is the “alternative” one) but has them jump through the hoops of his clunky premise. Targeted at a local festival by the goddess as the year’s lucky sacrifices, the girls start to experience hallucinations – induced by means unclear – of their ultimate fear. For influencer Stacey it’s ageing; for Blake it’s dogs; for us, another 20 minutes of sitting through this cattle-prodding obviousness.
Fifteen years ago, Neil Marshall’s The Descent showed Brit-horror the smart route for female-led work. But showing plenty of tight torsos and cleavage, with nothing deeper to reveal, Creed fails to break away from more antique horror traditions. It doesn’t help that folk-horror, perhaps because it is so rooted in the ritualistic, is also becoming an increasingly ossified and crowded genre. The only sacrilege committed here is on the bank account of whoever funded this.
• Sacrilege is available on digital platforms on 27 September.
