Consecration (2023) Review

The residents of Mount Savior convent often utter a strange phrase: “There is only one God — and his shadow.” Indeed, there is something very wrong at the convent in Consecration, a Catholic horror that kneels at the expected altars but doesn’t quite rise from the pews.

Grace (Jena Malone, Hunger Games series) is an atheist physician whose brother always said she must have a guardian angel. Soon, mysterious apparitions seem to be shadowing her, and then she receives a shattering call. Her brother, now a priest, has been murdered at a convent in Scotland.

Upon reaching the Isle of Skye to see for herself, Grace is fierce and abrupt with the local detective and the convent’s head nun. Grace and the meddling Mother Superior immediately engage in a battle of wills.

Far from home, removed from her routine, and under stress, Grace is out of her element. She falls deeper in with fainting spells and wakes to find herself at the mysterious convent, dressed in the white habit of the obscure order.

Danny Huston (Children of Men) plays Father Romero, sent from the Vatican to re-consecrate the ancient church. He explains to Grace that the present chapel was built from the stones of the original ruined church.

Father Romero reveals that the old church was the site of crusaders hiding relics and participating in pagan rituals. Grace’s brother died on the rocky shore below the old church.

While Romero promises the Vatican now operates with transparency, Mother Superior and her strange band of novitiates prefer to obfuscate with silence and vague religious references. The reason for her brother’s death is unclear, but it seems related to a quest for a particular lost relic.

Grace is also a mystery, an adopted child with no birth record. Flashbacks flesh out Grace’s backstory to show how she is relevant to the strange events unfolding at the convent. But competing flash forwards tend to muddle the supernatural aspect.

Grace’s conflicted feelings toward the church are at the heart of the story. The staunch atheist seems to lose her bearings in one scene where she looks up toward the high ceiling of the chapel, seemingly overwhelmed with the spiritual nature of the place.

Consecration moves along at a fast clip, and there’s plenty of meat on the bones of this story. As a Catholic horror, it is jam-packed with all the feels: The costumes, church interiors, satanic references, long-ago sacrilege of idol worshipers, weird nuns, relics, visions, speaking in Latin, mighty angels.

Despite the expected themes, director and writer Christopher Smith (Triangle, Black Death, Severance, Creep) deserves credit for not making a possession/exorcist film. Instead, Consecration is a murder mystery cloaked in ancient religious ritual, with mild overtones of films featuring angels like the Prophecy series and even Wings of Desire. There’s a lot of craft in the details: sustained palpable tension, effective backstories, and symmetrical events that artfully connect the dots.

The film proceeds for most of the run time as a mystery, with Grace boldly taking her investigation much further than the local police are willing. But as the story progresses, supernatural elements begin to surface, then take over, with bloody results.

Many past — and future — details eventually snap into place, but the film loses focus as Grace’s identity and role in the conflict over the relic become less clear. While this ambiguity may be an attempt to break from expected outcomes, it risks losing contact with the audience.

There’s plenty to chew on if you’re a fan of Catholic horrors. But Consecration lacks the immediacy, punch, and satisfying resolution of a thrilling horror film.

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