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Grace learns from DCI Harris (Thoren Ferguson) that her brother killed one other priest after which killed himself. Grace refuses to imagine he’s able to both act. Neither does the kooky Mom Superior (Janet Suzman), who tells them he was possessed by a demon, and each deaths had been with a purpose to overcome that possession. Additionally within the combine is Father Romero (Danny Huston), who has come from the Vatican to re-consecrate the grounds to cleanse them after the brutal deaths.
From there, the movie goes off the rails with copious flashbacks and potential hallucinations of Grace’s troubled childhood, creepy-looking spiritual ceremonies taking place within the twelfth century, and visions of nuns and monks flinging themselves off the cliffs to their deaths. None of those numerous threads are ever woven collectively very efficiently, leaving the core story muddled, and the ultimate reveal each preposterous and extremely apparent.
Malone is out of her factor right here, by no means capable of finding a modicum of reality in Grace’s journey. Is she a grieving sister decided to uncover the reality of her brother’s loss of life? A misplaced soul in want of a non secular awakening? A girl who suppressed an abused childhood confronting the abuser? Any one in every of these motivations would have labored to root the efficiency in some form of emotional reality, even when the plotting swerves into the realm of the fantastical.
Not one of the supporting characters are given a lot depth, both. Father Romero appears to exist solely to share exposition with the viewers by explaining issues to Grace. Mom Superior and her coterie of nuns placed on a spookshow each likelihood they get, both by means of cryptic dialogue or the mutilation of their our bodies. They’re eerie, positive, however every nun that Grace interacts with has no distinctive persona outdoors of their zealous struggling. “Consecration” doesn’t see them as folks, simply vessels for portentous speeches and ritual violence.
Together with Smith and co-writer Laurie Prepare dinner’s cliche-ridden script, a lot of the imagery of the movie is equally lazy. Figures float behind Grace as she investigates numerous rooms. Usually the nuns contort their heads to the facet for completely no motive, as in the event that they’re attempting out to be extras in Ken Russell’s “The Devils.” A number of sequences seem like lifted instantly from that far superior movie about spiritual mania and fanaticism.
Regardless of beautiful areas, co-cinematographers Rob Hart and Shaun Mone shoot the verdant hills and historic buildings with out a lot panache, favoring murky darkness at virtually each flip, whether or not characters are inside a hospital, police station, rectory, or out on a cliff. There’s additionally little visible distinction between the timelines, mixing inexorably collectively in a means that may have been fascinating if the precise throughline weren’t so muddled in execution on the script degree.
