‘Consecration’

This week’s entry into horror’s possession sub-genre is “Consecration,” a new IFC Films-distributed chiller that plays more like a supernatural mystery than a straight-up horror movie. As it turns out, looking at it that way works in the film’s favor considering there isn’t a single scare to be found in the movie’s lean 90-minute runtime. Unfortunately the mystery itself is never that compelling, and sticking with the story as we wait for the eventual payoff ends up being a test of patience.

What’s frustrating is that there are a smattering of cool ideas baked into “Consecration” that simply don’t come together like they could have. Directed by Christopher Smith from a script he co-wrote with producer Laurie Cook, the movie borrows all sorts of religious liturgy, symbolism and vernacular to create its familiar yet believable sectarian setting. And Scotland’s atmospheric Isle of Skye offers some fittingly spooky yet gorgeous locations. Also, the movie has itself a good lead in Jena Malone.

But “Consecration” lacks the engaging storyline to hold it all together. It’s bookended by a promising premise that both starts and ends in an interesting place. But it’s the sluggish middle that may have enough going on to hold your attention, but that never takes the story (or the audience for that matter) in any exciting directions. Instead it mostly sits in idle, slowly building up but ultimately teasing much more than it delivers.

Malone plays the ironically named Grace, an embittered atheist who more or less embodies the movie’s mostly cynical view of religion. A series of clunky flashbacks hint at a traumatic childhood. One marked by physical and mental abuse stemming from her father’s religious zealotry. These days she’s an eye doctor from the States who has worked hard to put her troubling past behind her. But being this is a horror movie, that proves to be easier said than done.

Grace is devastated after hearing that her brother Michael (Steffan Cennydd) has been found dead at a convent in Scotland. Michael, we learn, was a Catholic priest who was part of a devoutly rigid yet vaguely defined sect. Local police, led by detective chief inspector Harris (Thoren Ferguson), are investigating his death as a murder-suicide. They believe that Michael killed a fellow priest before taking his own life. But Grace isn’t buying it. So she flies to Scotland to identify her brother’s body and do a little investigating herself.

At the convent, Grace meets the gruff and evasive Mother Superior (Janet Suzman) who claims Michael “fell into darkness.” She believes he killed himself fighting off a demon, which a skeptical Grace immediately dismisses as nonsense. Then there’s Father Romero (Danny Huston) who is assigned by the Vatican to investigate the death and consecrate the convent to remove any residual evil. To Grace’s surprise, Father Romero pledges his full cooperation and support. Huston is such a good actor, and he craftily sells nobility while still leaving us suspicious of his character’s motives.

Unfortunately, he ( like much of the movie) is left hanging by a script that simply doesn’t have the depth it needs. It tries to build on Grace’s backstory through the aforementioned flashbacks and a handful of semi-chilling visions that she experiences every so often. There’s also a revelation about some powerful mystical relic that the sect is after. And we get some hard to decipher references to a cult (I think) with connections (again, I think) to the ruins of an old chapel on a cliff. But again, none of that stuff gets the attention or the detail needed for us to really care.

Some of this may be easy to look past if the movie was even mildly scary. Sadly, it’s not. It takes a few cheap swings, such as trying to jolt us with an annoyingly loud phone ring or coating some of its characters in quarts of blood. But none of it is chilling or unsettling, and that only highlights the film’s more glaring problems. Thankfully, Smith keeps things short and sweet. But actually, this is a movie that could have used another 20 minutes or so. Maybe with a little more time spent on fleshing out its story, “Consecration” could have been the movie it teases rather than the movie it ends up being.

Bloody murder: devout atheist Grace (Jena Malone) is determined to prove her Catholic priest brother didn’t commit suicide and thereby consign himself to eternal damnation in Christopher Smith’s supernatural mystery “Consecration.”