The Last Sacrifice (2024) Review

The clicking of film running through a projector and a slight wow on the pastoral soundtrack ushers in footage of “the blue hills” of The Cotswolds in 1945. It’s a beautiful area of England, replete with picturesque villages and historical monuments. However, the twee public information film stylings aren’t allowed to roll on for long and they’re interrupted – and ultimately halted – by cuts to something far more disturbing. The film becomes grainy and unfocused, the music disquieting and we’re told of of a bizarre, gruesome murder which happened on Meon Hill to one Charles Walton. Charles was reputed to be a friendly, harmless old man, yet he was battered to death with a stick, pinned to the ground with his own pitchfork and the sign of the cross was cut into his chest with his own billhook.

The crime would baffle investigators for decades and, aside from the question of exactly who killed him, the why would suggest his demise was possibly related to witchcraft, which ultimately provided the inspiration for iconic folk horror film The Wicker Man. And, as star Christopher Lee says early on in the runtime,” There’s nothing fictitious about black magic.” Was Walton apportioned the blame for a failed crop? Does this killing say something far more about who we are as a people?

Directed by Rupert Russell, The Last Sacrifice is part true crime documentary, part examination of an isle whose fascination with black magic was never far from the surface. To tell both tales, Russell’s ingenious method is to use clips from the key horror movies Britain’s dark history would inspire and sprinkling in salient points from television documentaries and news reports of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when interest in the occult appeared to be reaching a new peak. Various talking head sequences inform the fictional and factual action, with contributions from, among others author Simon Read, Professor Ronald and senior lecturer in media Dr. Diane Rodgers which is also an opportunity for me to give a shout out to my alma mater of Sheffield Hallam University.

In addition to the cultural context, The Last Sacrifice also serves as a folk horror movie primer for those yet to delve into the genre while generating a feeling of oddly cosy nostalgia in the rest of us. Of course, the shadow of Robin Hardy’s 1973 masterpiece looms large over the piece but sequences from Witchfinder General, Blood On Satan’s Claw and Twins Of Evil demonstrate than Sergeant Howie meeting his fiery fate was rooted in centuries of flirtations with a hidden world. If your tastes run to the more modern, you’ll catch glimpses of Kill List and Midsommar here too.

In investigating the killing of Charles Walton, the film postulates various theories as to the motive for whoever caused Walton to meet his particularly sticky end. Walton was rumoured to carry around large sums of money on his person, but the murder would seem far too elaborate to suggest a robbery, leaving the more salacious options of Walton being chosen as a blood sacrifice or that he was indeed a witch himself and ended up on the sharp end of a pagan ritual. Famed sleuth Fabian Of Scotland Yard couldn’t crack the case, bogged down by a lack of credible information and hindered by a community that may have closed ranks in the presence of an outsider. The parallels with the fictional location of Summerisle can’t be ignored.

There’s a lot to take in over the brisk ninety-four minutes of The Last Sacrifice, which would be already bursting with insight into the Walton case and the subgenre of horror it spawned but somehow finds the space to branch off into yet more intriguing sidebars. There’s commentary on the changing perception of witches in the media over the years, the classic hag of the animated Snow White morphing into younger, more alluring practitioners of the craft. The clash between Christianity and paganism is given an airing too, with the fear of the other being amped up and inducing panic in a country which, if the tabloid press was to be believed, was rapidly descending into a hotbed of Satanism and needing to be saved.

The constant sliding back and forth on the real world to film world continuum, plus the unavoidable shifts in film style and stock, might cause a slight dizziness in the viewer but on the whole Russell’s movie comes together coherently and rather splendidly, with many moments of leavening humour which point up the very English way of rolling up your sleeves and getting on with it, even when the “it” turns out to be an initiation where a roomful of strangers is naked.

Switching much of the focus to a specific time when Britain “was going nuts,” there’s a case to be made that it had clearly been going nuts here for much longer than that and it was the advent of the permissive society which caused a certain kind of behaviour to be allowed into the open and into the public consciousness. The reminiscences of those folks in real life covens is fascinating and low key hilarious as the recount their lifestyle in a way that’s shot through with the mundanity of popping out to the shops to pick up some bread. The Last Sacrifice not only has plenty to say about the birth of folk horror movies but also perfectly captures what a weird and wonderful place our little island is. To our many visitors, just be mindful of what may be lurking beneath the ritual of tea and cake.

Movie Rating:

The Last Sacrifice trailer