THE SACRIFICE GAME movie poster | ©2023 Shudder

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Mena Massoud, Olivia Scott Welch, Gus Kenworthy, Madison Baines, Derek Johns, Laurent Pitre, Chloë Levine, Georgia Acken
Writers: Jenn Wexler & Sean Redlitz
Director: Jenn Wexler
Distributor: Shudder
Release Date: December 8, 2023 (Shudder)

THE SACRIFICE GAME is set in 1971, perhaps to avoid pesky technology issues and/or to justify the careful production design and color schemes. Directed by Jenn Wexler, with a script by Wexler & Sean Redlitz, it has a nicely-balanced mix of human malice and the supernatural.

We are introduced upfront to “the Christmas Killers,” as they have been dubbed by the press. These are Jude (Mena Massoud), Maisie (Olivia Scott Welch), Grant (Derek Johns), and Doug (Laurence Pitre). They stage a home invasion and gorily kill a couple, then murder a priest, who begs them, “Don’t let it out.”

We get the hint that this foursome is a little cult, intent on provoking some sort of occult occurrence.

Meanwhile, at the Blackvale School for Girls, the teen students are leaving for the winter holiday – except for unpopular Samantha (Madison Baines), who misses her late mom, and even less popular Clara (Georgia Acken), who is very quiet.

Their teacher, Miss Rose Tanner (Chloë Levine), is staying at the school over the break with her two students who are stuck on the premises. Rose is determined that her charges will have a good time, even if it means letting them put a little vodka into the pie crust. Rose’s boyfriend Jimmy (Gus Kenworthy), the school cook, is a nice enough, sincere fellow.

Then Jude, Maisie, Grant, and Doug force their way inside. We find out exactly what they think they are doing, and why they’re doing it here.

In its very broad strokes, THE SACRIFICE GAME lets us accurately guess where it’s going. We wonder about the details enough to be gratified by each successive revelation.

We also come to like our protagonists – Samantha, Clara, Rose, and Jimmy – and dislike their tormentors enough to have a rooting interest in the outcome.

Wexler & Redlitz structure the story well. The internal logic works, and it has enough wrinkles to fill up its running time, even after we fully know what’s happening.

As director, Wexler also has a good sense of visual cohesion. Everything is a little pale, a little drab, so that we at least subconsciously wonder what’s hiding in the shadows. Everything seems to belong in the same realm of hues and shapes, from the offices to the lunch hall to the basement to the snowy exteriors.

Baines is sympathetic in her wide-eyed fear, and Acken conveys hidden depths. Levine and Kenworthy are touching. Massoud puts brashness and mean joy into the leader of the killers, Welch is admirably fearless, and both Johns and Pitre manage to bring some humanity to their initially hateful characters.

THE SACRIFICE GAME doesn’t entirely work as a scare fest. We worry for certain people, but we’re never really frightened, either by immediate jumps or by long-foreshadowed menaces. Still, the film accomplishes most of what it sets out to do, and it has an ending that is more than usually satisfying.

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