Sacrifices (2014) watch online HD

Detective Jenkins is hunting for his girlfriend Avery, who has been missing for a few days. He goes to physic Miss Michelle to try to get a clue, but ends up finding more than he bargained for.

This short film was made as part of the 48 Hour Horror Film Festival in Atlanta; one of many such events where filmmakers are given some key elements (a prop, a character name, a line of dialogue etc) and then told they have 48 hours to write a film that will screen 48 hours later. It is a concept that I guess for creative people is a real rush and, while I have seen some great films from such festivals, sadly a lot are just happy to have been completed on time, and are perhaps not as good as they would have been if more time had been available.

Given the constraint it must be said that the make-up work on Sacrifices is really very good, whether it is the sweaty sheen on the face of those alone in the darkness, or the more obvious gore that comes later. Okay I guess such things could have been prepared in advance to a point, but still, for a production under time pressure, it is pretty impressive. Technically it must be said the film is also good, with clean sound, high quality picture, mostly good lighting and editing that is only a bit too abrupt once or twice. Unfortunately the more fundamental blocks of the film are not as good.

The story can be excused by pointing to the 48 hour time limit, but the need for an excuse remains, because we really have no narrative here to speak of; instead we rush through the setup and get to the business end asap. It is a shame because the opening scene of darkness and unknown was a nice way to begin, but from there it is talking leading directly into horror, without anything to draw the viewer in. Although gory, the horror does also play a bit on creepy- kid clichés, which I generally am affected by, but here it doesn't quite work because the polish on the delivery isn't where they probably wanted it to be. This isn't to pick on the child actors, because the adult performances are weak in key roles. Most notably weak is Edney; I am not sure what she was aiming for with her psychic, but she is distant, lacking presence, heavy in cliché and really comes over like she is fighting boredom. Given how key her first scene is to drawing the viewer in, this is a big problem. Matlock's detective is okay, but he doesn't really convince in the role. I guess the material is partly to blame for this, but their shared scene (the key scene) is poor. Although many technical aspects are very good, shot selection feels overly deliberate at times (character shows card = close-up of card etc) and it doesn't flow as well as it should have done.

The gore, creepy characters and action of the end will perhaps please those coming to this horror looking for those things, but for me the lack of reason to be involved or care is the real limiting factor, and it comes down to the film being able to build on that opening dark shot, and draw the viewer in, but it doesn't do this, instead stalling on a very weak scene which the following gore and creepiness can't recover from. Kudos to those that made this in the time challenge, but I'd rather have seen what they could have done with more time available for writing and planning.