Consecration review – creepy nuns deliver the classic moves of holy terror very effectively
This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a wimple. In this well-crafted horror movie, a young woman called Grace (Jena Malone) finds herself up against a bunch of nuns who may or may not be trying to do something extremely dodgy with an unknown relic, and as with last year's Omen prequel, there's a nice line in casting here from the Ladybird Book of Horror Nuns. There's dotty young nun who pops up going 'peekaboo' (Eilidh Fisher), an arrogant mother superior (Janet Suzman), a hardliner weapon-of-Christ sort (Jolade Obasola), and the rather rarer spooky nun with one eye hidden behind an ominous white bandage (Alexandra Lewis). Their acting is uniformly excellent, as is that from Danny Huston, who plays a priest who introduces himself thusly: 'I'm Father Romero, I'm here from the Vatican,' which announces him as probably up to no good from the get-go.
Grace arrives to identify the body of her brother (Steffan Cennydd), seemingly involved in a murder-suicide, has reasons of her own for being less than a fully paid-up God squad member, and while the reasons may not be much of a surprise if you've seen a few of these kinds of films, this is a very nicely put together example. Sure, it's purest hokum, but real pride has gone into crafting it..
Cocooning the treats of the storytelling in natural splendour, Consecration boasts some gorgeous location work; filmed on Skye and other scenic areas, there are rolling highlands, vertiginous cliff-tops, a tumbledown abbey on the crest of a hill – which you just have to accept as the site of the Knights of the Morning Star, an ancient dark force in the church. The world of the film feels real, a splendid argument for less green screen, more green fields – kudos to veteran British horror helmer Christopher Smith (Severance).
Consecration is on digital platforms from 16 June.
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