Sacrifice (II) (2016)
10/10
Ya Gotta See This Movie
3 May 2016
Composer Benedikt Brydern's minimalist score opening at the start of SACRIFICE is a savagely witty tip off about what to expect from Director Peter A. Dowling's movie. It has a relentless pounding riff that never stops until the credits end for this action-adventure-mystery with what may appear to be familiar horror movie overtones that may distract audiences a little but the savage violence – without gratuitous gore, mind you – and many scenes of sinister happenings will make them focus as the story unfolds.

Here is another tip off about what to expect. In her more than 62 screen credits, according to the Internet Movie Database, Radha Mitchell's portfolio includes some of the best upscale A, B horror and sci-fi movies that required her to fight off flesh-eating aliens, zombies and even a monster crocodile, just to name a few. Here is one more tip off: This is a bloody great, edge-of-your-seat movie with very imaginative plot stratagems and themes, such as this one: The maternal instinct is a force of nature.

What's this? I thought when Bydern's score kicked in early in the beginning. Odd, for that kind of dramatic music for a movie about a doctor, Tora Hamilton (Radha Mitchell) moving with her husband (Rupert Graves), to the Shetland Islands, 100 miles off the coast of Scotland. They're having baby-making problems and they're hoping to resolve them in their new land where Rupert was born.

In the course of her new job as a pediatrician, she becomes involved in the mystery surrounding the body of a young woman with strange symbols carved into her flesh and her heart ripped out. Whoa! The body is found on the property of her and her husband. (Yes, Brydern's music is pounding on.) Some critics might snipe about the very subtle, and I mean very subtle, hints at movies like ROSEMARY'S BABY and The STEPFORD WIVES but trust me SACRIFICE will keep folks on the edges of their seats.
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