Consecration

Consecration has one attention grabber of an opening scene, I'll give it that.  A nun is seen walking down the street, until she suddenly seems to confront a random woman, and pulls a gun on her.  It's all downhill from there, as nothing else in this lethargic and largely muddled thriller ever comes close to getting an equal reaction as its first scene.

This is one of those movies that seems like it was filmed in slow motion.  It's all atmosphere with stone buildings, creeping shadows, dark figures lurking just out of frame, and lots of wacko nuns performing strange ceremonies that are not quite as ominous as the movie seems to think they are.  It also gives us flashbacks.  Lots and lots of flashbacks, which range from the tortured childhood of the lead heroine and the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father, to flashbacks of 12th Century knights performing dark and sinister religious practices.  When we're not getting visions of the past, we get characters talking about the past, or dumping exposition.  It all adds up to a final reveal we can see coming miles away, and is not worth the 90 minute journey (which feels much longer while watching it) co-writer and director Christopher Smith wants us to take.

The not-so-subtly named Grace (Jena Malone) is a non-believer in God, but finds herself at a Scottish Convent where her brother used to live and work as a priest.  He has recently died, and the police have ruled it a murder-suicide, which Grace does not believe in the slightest.  When Grace views the body of her brother at the coroner's, she sees his spirit issue a warning, so she knows that something very dark is going on within the halls of that place.  It doesn't help that the Convent's Mother Superior (Janet Suzman) acts as suspiciously as possible, and all of the nuns seem to be hiding secrets.  A priest from the Vatican named Father Romero (Danny Huston) is there too, and offers Grace lots of exposition, but naturally he has has share of secrets as well.

Consecration never quite gets a handle on the story it wants to tell.  Is it about a sister grieving for her brother?  Is it about her tortured family background, and how her father murdered her mother and kept her and her brother locked in cages as children?  Is it about shadowy conspiracies within organized religion that are tied to centuries-old beliefs?  The movie touches on all of these subjects, but can't find a way to string them all together successfully.  It also can't find the humanity in these characters, and it becomes even harder when the plot starts to veer into the supernatural later on.  Everybody acts and talks like they've been drained of energy.

Yes, I know that this is supposed to be a dark and moody thriller, and the atmosphere is laid on thick in almost every scene, but that's the only trick it has in its arsenal.  We get shadows lurking, torches burning in dark tunnels, and lots of chanting, but it's hard to give a damn about anything when it's all being directed with such a total lack of enthusiasm.  Not even the movie seems all that interested in itself, as it just glosses over its subject matter instead of diving head-first.  When the movie goes back to that opening image with that nun with the gun near the end of the film, it's much less effective than it was before, because of everything that has led up to it.

By normal standards, Consecration should be hidden somewhere on streaming, yet it got lucky enough to score a full theatrical release.  Don't be lured in by the atmospheric trailer and poster image.  The movie is deadly dull, and never registers anything close to resembling a single thrill.

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