Film Review

The Sacrifice Game (2023) • Shudder — echoes of the Manson Family in a 1970s Christmas chiller

A demon-summoning cult descends on a nearly deserted boarding school over the Christmas holidays…

The Christmastime setting of Jenn Wexler’s The Sacrifice Game serves as a mere plot device, providing a rationale for the sparse occupancy of an isolated, cavernous girls’ boarding school, where only a couple of pupils and two staff members remain. It also serves as an opportunity to conclude the well-curated soundtrack with Girl in a Coma’s punk cover of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”.

But the early-1970s setting adds another layer to the story. Conveniently, it removes modern communication devices like mobile phones and the internet from the equation, as the school’s handful of residents are threatened by a demon-raising cult. Moreover, it lends the cult members an unmistakable air of the Manson Family, casting a genuinely sinister shadow over the narrative that might otherwise veer too close to silliness.