By Simon Thompson
Writer/director Jack Hessler’s Sacrament is a brooding black and white short, which fits into the vein of American anti-establishment art as comfortably as a Cormac McCarthy novel or a Wally Wood comic book panel. Sacrament isn’t the most dialogue heavy short you’ll come across, and it’s all the better for that, because the stark and striking imagery which Hessler conjures both conveys the story effectively and disturbs and intrigues in equal measure, a feat which is something anybody making a horror movie wants to be able to accomplish.
Taking place in the 1950s, Sacrament tells the story of Belford and Winston ( Abel Benitez and Rin Iverson), two young men on a camping trip outside their rural, religious, hometown. As the story begins to unfold it becomes abundantly clear that two men are clearly attracted to one another, something which is frowned upon and forbidden by their religious backgrounds. What follows is a long dark night of the soul for Belford, as he tries to reconcile his religious faith with what his heart desires.
I would describe the look of Sacrament, as the result of what would happen if George A Romero, FW Murnau, and David Lynch were all put on the same final year project together. The crisp black and white cinematographer is strongly reminiscent of Romero’s Night of The Living Dead, with the constant off-kilter imagery being a strongly Lynchian trait, and the prevailing sense of doom and menace bringing to mind Murnau’s Nosferatu and The Last Laugh.
The movie’s eerie and elegiac score by Joshua Quigley beautifully compliments Hessler’s visuals to the extent that it gives Sacrament an almost silent movie-like quality. Quigley’s score functions in a similar fashion to the way Jim Jarmusch used Neil Young’s in Deadman in that the film’s minimal use of diegetic sound allows the score to really sink in.
To conclude, Sacrament is a surreal, unsettling, and daring horror short that while not particularly strong on the dialogue front is so offbeat and atmospheric that it’s worth a look just to experience the cinematography.
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