Any type of shelter is a godsend when you have been injured and are stranded with little chance of making a full recovery. When one’s final hope for a shelter turns out to be a deathbed, however, a blessing quickly turns into a burden. ‘The Sacrifice’ is a terrifying story about a group of guys who cross paths with an old vicious vampire.
Fear Itself was an anthology horror series that premiered in 2008 and served as an unofficial third season of ‘Masters of Horrors.’ This episode, directed by Breck Eisner, goes into a realm filled of bizarre killings and disappearances, fabled lore, and unthinkable terrors, keeping viewers on the edge of their seats until the very last moment.
The Sacrifice – Tales from a ghost town
Based on the short story ‘The Lost Herd’, the movie opens with a group of men: Point, Diego, and Lemon traveling with their injured accomplice Navvaro. It appears that they have committed a crime, and they stay off the main roads and drive through the woods to stay off the police’s radar. While a frantic Lemon asks them to hurry up so they can find medical help for Navvaro, their car suddenly hits an obstacle and stops working.
With nowhere to go, they drag Navvaro in a boat across the snowy regions; and we see a hooded figure watch their movements from behind a tree. As the four men make their way across the snowy woods, they come across a huge wooden barn that leads them through to an abandoned settlement. The group settles down in one of the furnished houses and as Lemon treats Navvaro, they hear female voices in the basement of the house.
Point and Diego investigate the noises and come across a ghastly bedroom with human sketches all over the walls. They return to the living room and find a young girl, Chelsea, treating Navvaro. She is accompanied by her sister, Victoria and the girls offer them a place to stay for the night. They follow the girls to their barn and learn that they live along with a third sister, Tara, and an old reverend who is bedridden.
As they settle in the place, Point suspects something fishy is going on with the sisters, while the rest of the gang are smitten with them.
Meanwhile, as Chelsea takes care of Navvaro and sews up his wound, she even stitches his lips shut. Things continue to spiral when Virginia requests Diego’s assistance with a problem in the barn. Diego agrees to help her and blindly follows her directions when she points to a thick blanket on the ground.
He treads on it and ends up falling into a deep pit; while Virginia leaves the place and closes the door behind him. A trapped Diego panics, and looks around with his lighter to only discover a human skull and starts to worry. Just then, the barn door opens once again and we hear Diego’s screams as a creature in the dark pounces on him and attacks him.
Virginia then moves on to Lemon, her next victim, and seduces him into coming to the ‘skin house’. Here, he is struck unconscious and wakes up hanging upside down amid a bunch of skinned rabbits.
Meanwhile, a suspicious Point tries to investigate the case of the woman and comes across Navvaro’s dead body; with a spike through his heart. He looks around and even finds the old reverend making strange noises, bound to his bed. The beast drags the Reverend out of sight by the chain and murders him. Point frantically looks for Lemon, while Chelsea finds that the Reverend is no longer alive and begins to scream. As his body rises behind her, Chelsea utters a prayer and then smashes an axe at his head to finish him off.
In the skin room, Tara approaches Lemon and shows him a similar sketch of him as the ones spotted earlier in the basement room. While he begs her to rescue him, Tara hears the creature snarling as it moves toward Lemon. All the commotion helps Point locate Lemon, and he runs into the barn to see him under attack. The monster turns around and approaches Point instead, who starts shooting at it, chasing it away. While Lemon hangs upside down, Tara notices that he has been wounded by the creature and she locates an axe, about to attack him. Instinctively, Point tries to save Lemon by attacking Tara with a spike; ending up killing her.
The two men escape the skin house, and demand to know what is going around in the place. Chelsea explains that the monster hid among her clan when they immigrated to America from Romania. The creature is a vampire and to safeguard the outer world, they agreed to set up the fort in an attempt to confine the monstrosity within it. The vampire ended up attacking the members of the group, and only Chelsea and her family were left alive. Their father, The Reverend, let the vampire feed on him until there were visitors that they could lure in. The vampire, or anyone affected by its bites and attacks, can only be killed by burning, a spike through the chest, or by beheading.
While they have this conversation, Virginia notices the wounds on Lemon’s hand and establishes that they need to kill him before he turns into a vampire. Point refuses to let this happen, and he points his gun at Virginia threatening them to not take any drastic actions.
However, as this conversation takes place, Lemon begins to turn and attacks Point himself. As chaos breaks loose, Virginia gets bitten by Lemon before Point finally understands the need to kill him and drives a spike through his heart. Things do not subdue, as the creature shows up looking for more bodies to feed on. Chelsea uses Virginia as bait and lowers her into a pit hoping that her injuries and blood will divert the vampire’s attention from them to her.
Their plan works and as the creature approaches the pit, Point shoves him in and closes the door behind. He then uses an ax to make holes in the door and pours in gasoline to start a fire within the pit. As Chelsea and Point take a step back, they hear Virginia’s screams of agony as she sees her death in the pit along with the vampire.
Relieved that they got rid of the vampire, Chelsea and Point watch the barn burn down and intend to leave town soon. However, when the day arrives, Chelsea notices vampire bites on Point’s shoulder. Apparently, he got injured while fighting off Lemon; and is sure to turn soon. Helplessly, he looks over to Chelsea who once again closes the main doors knowing that the problem isn’t over. As the episode comes to an end, Chelsea looks over at Point with an agitated look as the screen turns black.
Why you should watch ‘The Sacrifice’?
As the opening story in this anthology series, ‘The Sacrifice’ does a good job at catching the audience’s attention right from the start. It explores themes of horror mixed with supernatural elements and is packed with suspense and thrills. Though it cannot be called a classic, this episode is still a fresh take on the vampire genre, blended together with a classic ‘lost in the wood trope. If you enjoy anthology horror, then ‘The Sacrifice’ is definitely worth a watch!