Vice Magazine journalist Sam (AJ Bowen) heads to Eden Parish to find out the story behind the commune. He’s joined by his faithful cameraman Jake (Joe Swanberg), and a photographer, Patrick (Kentucker Audley), whose sister Caroline (Amy Seimetz) joined the collective in order to get over a nasty drug habit. When the group arrive, they find what appears to be a utopia. Food and water seem to be plentiful, everyone looks healthy, and nobody has a bad word to say about their pastor, who they fondly refer to as ‘Father’. So why do armed guards stand at Eden Parish’s gates, and why does Father himself (played by Gene Jones), despite his right-on sermons about racial equality and economic freedom, have a slightly sinister air about him? The three leads (Bowen, Swanberg and Audley) are good value, and West’s script highlighting how these three well-heeled city boys are so out of their element in the rugged wilds of South Africa. But the film really belongs to Gene Jones as Father, who like Harry Lime in The Third Man, casts a long pall over the story long before we even see him. It’s not until the second act that Father makes his grand entrance, and it takes the form of a 10-minute nocturnal interview with AJ Bowden’s journalist. Jones is superb here: charismatic, manipulative, and possessed with the ability to imply threat without overtly stating it. It also says a great deal about West’s abilities as both a writer and director that this scene is as nervy and mesmerising as the more overtly horrific moments in his earlier films, such as The Innkeepers and The House Of The Devil. The Sacrament’s second half drifts into more conventional horror territory, yet even here West refuses to let us off the hook; this is the kind of horror that unnerves and creeps under the skin rather than titillates with splashes of gore, and it’s all the more effective for it. That said, one or two moments do seem a little too clichéd for comfort – particularly a panicked direct-to-camera address straight out of The Blair Witch Project – and it could be argued that not all the character decisions necessarily ring true. Insatiable gore hounds may find themselves frustrated by The Sacrament’s predatory approach, but those looking for a horror film with depth and no small amount of intelligence will almost certainly be satisfied. On a relatively low budget, West has crafted an unusual genre film within a typical horror structure. Like an indie, genre version of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, it’s a journey into the darker reaches of the human psyche, with Gene Jones providing its Colonel Kurtz-like heart of darkness. The Sacrament is out on the 6th June in UK cinemas. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.