Jenn Wexler's holiday horror film The sacrificial game is full of surprises. The story, about a group of killers who plan to perform a demonic ritual at an elite boarding school at Christmas, feels a bit like a home invasion thriller, and a bit like other boarding school horror films of the era, from the classic Suspiria to Simon Barrett's Seance. (And coincidentally, it looks a lot like the 2023 Critical Treasure The survivors.)
But the killers are unusually nuanced, and a series of revelations over the course of the film add unexpected tension and gore to the initial thriller-style plot. When we spoke with Wexler after the film's U.S. premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, one of the bigger behind-the-scenes surprises that emerged was just how much science went into her horror film — and exactly how she chose and didn't choose . to use it.
“Jen did a lot of demonological research to create the world,” says producer Heather Buckley Sacrificial game and Wexler's previous horror-thriller, The Ranger. “I know she's deeply into it The lesser key of Solomon. There was some real exploration there. (…) A lot of the demonology stuff for the book came from real research and real illustrations, from a lot of esotericism.”
This is quite common in films that use satanic rituals or demonic rituals: The exorcist and the sequels are built around it Pazuzu, a demonic god worshiped by ancient cultures thousands of years ago. But Wexler wanted to avoid delving into that kind of history.
“I looked at all these demons and their characteristics, but I didn't want to use a real demon because I'm afraid of demons,” Wexler said. “At the same time that I'm an atheist, I'm like: I don't want to fuck a real demon and have that demon get mad at me. I wanted to create a demon that had some of the characteristics you read about (in ancient texts). And I took a sigil creation class to come up with the demon sigil design that I have on the necklace I wear.
That class – a Zoom seminar held by the now-defunct occult bookstore Catland Books in Brooklyn – helped Wexler form the visual symbolism for the film. “It was basically: write what you want, what you want to manifest, write that down,” she says. “And then you take those letters, put them together and create a symbol out of them. You allow the meaning of the letters to be lost, so it's all contained within this symbol. So that was part of the manifestation of Sacrificial game the film.”
Image: Shudder
That said, the film's symbolism came as much from Wexler's interest in films about possession and exorcism as it did from an interest in occultism. “I've seen so many possession movies where little girls in nightgowns are possessed, and then you have your older man who has to come and save them,” she said. 'And there's something weird, dark, sexual and perverse about that. Take God out of it – it has nothing to do with God, it has to do with the dynamic of the older man who saves this girl, who contorts her body in sexual ways even as she vomits at the same time. That is something that our culture is concerned with. I love The exorcistBut The exorcist It has obviously spawned so many films in that tradition, with that kind of imagery.”
For Wexler, part of making The sacrificial game worked specifically against that kind of stock possession and demonic imagery, and found ways to subvert it. But there's no way to discuss that without getting into spoilers for a film that is better experienced than described. And ultimately, the real-life occult research and underground inspirations aren't as important to her as the idea of people enjoying a horror movie that's fast-moving and full of shocks and twists.
“I really enjoyed talking about things beneath the surface, but through a nice storybook, kind of fairytale aesthetic,” Wexler said. “I wanted to make a fun, escapist, rollercoaster movie.”
The sacrificial game now streaming on Shudder.