Prediction: The Sacrament (NSFW, NSFK)

Another check your surroundings, their inhabitants, and your own blood-and-gore-o-meter, kids.

Shiri’s Prediction: I’m not gonna lie.  I can totally see this happening.  I am not exaggerating!  Okay, maybe a little.  But not much.  Because while I live in a nice, relatively accepting city, the surrounding area features people who think it’s a good idea to SHOOT COPPERHEADS off of other people’s hands.  My state also touches West Virginia.  Did you know banjo music plays in the empty air when you cross the border?  Look, the United States is the only country in which copies of Harry Potter books were gathered up and burned.  Yes, burned.  On bonfires.  Outside churches.  Like the Nazi’s used to do.  Because people were afraid their children would be corrupted by the devil via a fantasy novel.  Key words: fantasy and novel.  I did a whole paper on why this is in grad school which I will summarize for you here in one word: Puritains.  Nowhere in China was Harry consigned to the flames.  Neither in Israel nor any Arabic speaking nation.  Not in Russia nor the Ukraine nor Venezuela nor the UK nor Ireland.  Just.  Here.

People are murdered for being different.  Every day.  How distant is the line where they get tortured first?  Not very.  In fact, not at all, because that too.  It’s not the horror that freaks me out about this movie, it’s having human nature laid bare for the icing.

I’m going to have to watch The Sacrament from the safety of my own home.  With a baseball bat next to me and some hot sauce in a spray bottle.

I pity the Jehovah’s Witness who chooses that evening to knock on our door.

Luke’s Prediction: I think my podcast partner has gone loony, I can see Christian zealots killing sinners, maybe. But, cannibal Christians? Ugh, this movie looks like it takes the low budget exploitation movie to the next level and the worst part is there was nothing there to entice anyone to see the movie. Maybe the movie has a great twist or an amazing plot, but there was none of it there. It even made me feel a touch dirty, like the makers of the movie might have felt like people who were “sinners” should be killed and eaten.

So, I am perfectly willing to admit to watching all of the Saw movies, and though they were grisly and gruesome, they had something going for them: plot. Everything else aside, Saw has one of the more complex set of character interactions, plot twists, and ridiculously unbelievable turnarounds. But, it has not pretension to anything other than that. Gore and twists, and it delivers on both. And, I would argue much better than any of the other various torture porn franchises (Hostel, etc.)

This movie was just weak, seemed rushed and mediocre, like something you would rent the only copy of from the new section at Blockbuster because all of the copies of the movie you wanted were already checked out (for younger kids, this is the type of movie you watch on Netflix because the description sounded good and you forgot to check the user reviews).

Bah.