CONSECRATION (2023)

3 stars

Vertigo Releasing. Digital. 16th June

A nun walking through the streets. All in white. Grace (Jena Malone) is walking on the other side of the road. Then the nun approaches her and points a gun! An intriguing opening…

She gets a phone call from the police about her brother, who was a priest. He has been found dead after an incident at a convent in Scotland – in what appears to be case of murder/suicide

She travels there to try and find out what has happened and stops off at the police station to talk to the lead detective DCI Harris (Thoren Ferguson). It is early days in the investigation, so he drives her to the convent. It seems Father Carol was visiting from Rome and was found murdered, sliced open, in the chapel. Her brother was found nearby on the rocks by the old church. They think he committed the killing and then killed himself.

Despite not having seen him in a while, she is not convinced. The nuns are part of an extreme sect – some weeks previous one of the nuns claimed she had seen the devil and cut one of her eyes out. Perfectly normal behaviour. The Mother Superior (Janet Suzman) says he ‘fell into darkness’ and it was a demon that killed Father Carol and her brother tried to fight it and killed himself because of it. Certainly not something the cynical Grace will accept as what occurred.

But then, visiting the morgue, she sees a vision of her brother, saying “it’s not safe here”. When she passes out she ends up in hospital and is visited by the seemingly friendly Father Romero (Danny Huston), who has been sent by the Vatican. She keeps having these weird visions. Determined to find out what has happened she checks herself out and visits the area where her brother fell to his death – only to end up falling into the sea.

Next thing you know she awakens in a bedroom at the convent, dressed in simple clothes. What is happening? Father Romero fills her in on the bloody history of the place. Can she get to the bottom of what actually went on?

Director Christopher Smith is something of a veteran with horror – CREEP (2004), TRIANGLE (2009) and the recent TV show VIDEO NASTY – however this isn’t one of his best. There is a growing sense of unease and there is clearly more to this than meets the eye. What do her visions mean? The Fragments. Flashes… and how is it linked to her traumatic past.

Malone is strong as the no nonsense non-believer and is well supported by the ever reliable Danny Huston as Romero – who seems to be a voice of reason – but is he, or does he have an more sinister agenda?

The script by Smith and Laurie Cook, which play more like a murder mystery, does create a certain air of creepiness but it is never really frightening. Though take it from someone who went to a primary school which was run by nuns – nuns can be a bit scary!

Steve Kirkham