Good afternoon, House of Madness relics:
What is it about religion that makes it go so well with horror? Religion and horror often go hand-in-hand when it comes to stories written for readers and movie goers alike, but why is it we find the combination so satisfyingly terrorizing when done properly? Religion is to horror as peanut butter is to jam, Sonny is to Cher, and the Kardashians are to stupidity, but other than the obvious reason being demons, what is it about these types of horror movies that keep us coming back time after time, as more are churned out to the masses each year? If you yourself are religious, the answer to me is obvious that these movies hit hard because you believe in the religious aspects themselves, and feel that the fiction perceived on screen could actually be fact. In some way, I suppose many of us may not be religious per se, but still believe in higher powers, so the prospect of something horrifying taking place on Earth in a good vs. evil kind of scenario surely resonates with many as well. And I suppose the rest boils down to simply whether the film itself is actually scary, so the source material is of no consequence, as long as it's done well and proper. I place myself in some kind of a concoction of all three, as I was raised Catholic but don't practice it, always try and be a good person just in case I am being judged by someone with the moral authority to send me to a place that makes Ted Bundy giggle, and if the movie is scary, I don't give a fuck how it's scary as long as I'm there to witness it. "Consecration" may not work for everyone, especially if you're in group three, but if you're willing to accept what the film is attempting to portray, I can't guarantee you'll be delivered from evil come 90 minutes.
Grace (Jena Malone) is a young eye doctor, and one day out of the blue she receives a phone call that her priest brother Michael (Steffan Cennydd) is the main suspect in a murder-suicide at the convent where he practices. Grace rushes to find out what exactly is going on, and is fed nothing but lies as far as she is concerned, and won't rest until the case is solved to her gratification. Mother (Victoria Donovan) seems to be running some kind of evil cult as far as Grace is concerned, and there is much more going on at the convent than meets the eye, so with little help from police detective Harris (Thoren Ferguson), Grace turns to Father Romero (Danny Huston) for assistance. As Grace digs deeper, the death toll rises, as do Harris's suspicions of her being involved in some way, leaving Grace feeling hopeless and all alone while trying to decipher between whom she can trust and why. There is talk of an ancient relic that bestowed greed and gluttonous acquisitiveness among many in the convent and the outside world, and although it was apparently lost at sea after an earthquake, there are still plenty of those who believe in its existence, and would most certainly do anything required to take possession of its holy greatness.
As Grace struggles to discover what in fact Michael was involved with if anything, the finger pointing from Harris and Mother grow more intense towards her, leaving her feeling anxious to go along with the anally uptight demeanor she usually portrays (let's just say if you were to feed her a marble, in return she'd shit out liquid glass). Is Grace losing her mind? Has she already lost it? Are the nuns in Mother's 'cult' actually there to help in the eyes of good, or is Grace in fact being manipulated and gaslighted into believing she's the very thing she so desperately doesn't want to be? Her brother always believed she had a guardian angel, but Grace believed in nothing; now she's not so sure. Time to believe, or else it might be time to.........
Madness Meter: 5.7/10
NB
