Jordan Scott talks ‘A Sacrifice’, cults and bringing a novel to life

Nothing is quite as it seems with Jordan Scott’s ‘A Sacrifice‘, a new film that she penned alongside Nicholas Hogg, the author of the book, ‘Tokyo Nobody,’ which the feature is based on. The story, set now in Berlin versus Japan, sees American social psychologist Ben Monroe (Eric Bana) who becomes involved with a “once in a lifetime opportunity” investigating a local Berlin cult. When his daughter Mazzy (Sadie Sink) comes to visit and connects with a stranger, they both are thrust into the disturbing world of the group in a more sinister way.

Scott, who penned and directed the film, sat down to dive a little deeper into the story and what she hopes people take away from ‘A Sacrifice.’

Since the film is inspired by Nicholas Hogg’s novel, what did you like about the story?

The book was given to me, I loved it. Initially it was set in Tokyo, which I love, but it just had this great father daughter story. And then there was this kind of underlying threat, which was this cult that the book never fully dove into, but it just sort of gave tantalizing hints about—that was the part that really hooked me.

What was that adaptation process like with Nicholas? Obviously, it’s now set in Berlin, but what were some other changes that you went through?

Well, I wrote the script to take place in Tokyo, true to the novel, but then of course the pandemic happened and that no longer became an option. Japan, and Tokyo were preparing for the Olympics, and they didn’t want a million other people coming in there. So I had to rewrite it for another country pretty quickly. And I don’t know, I was kind of inspired by the fact that East Germany, East Berlin was a collectivist society under communist rule for I guess 41 years, four decades. And I thought that was a very interesting backdrop to place a cult against.

The cult aspect brings in these characters that have a lot brewing underneath and a lot to reveal as the story goes on. From a director’s standpoint, how do you build the suspense in that way?

It was a bit tricky with this story because obviously, they all have hidden layers to them. So it was a very careful way of seeding in layers of their personality or their characters as we went along without giving anything away. It was definitely a delicate process.

Were there any cults that you studied and pulled from for the film?

Oh yeah. I mean, there’s a lot, I went down a rabbit hole. I drew a little bit from everywhere without getting too specific, and not to piss anybody off… But yes, I drew from a lot of different places. And it’s fascinating, once you start scratching the surface on this subject matter, it’s just like there’s a whole world of information and societies to draw from.

We also see some interesting slow-mo and reverse shots in ‘A Sacrifice’. What role does that play in the story?

The moments in reverse are all seen through the character of Martin’s eyes. He has his pretty strange singular view of the world, and he sees a lot of things that aren’t there or maybe aren’t happening…it was all just a little bit of a mirror of his psyche.

What were you looking for when casting Ben and Mazzy since their relationship drives so much of the film? I thought Eric and Sadie were great together in the film.

They had natural, perfect father-daughter chemistry. It was kind of crazy, they were so great together. I think Ben’s character is, he’s a flawed man, but we’re all flawed. That’s the point. And he had to be a very likable, lovely guy who makes little mistakes along the way that snowball into a much bigger mistake.

So I think inherently both of these characters have to be incredibly sympathetic and likable, in order to show their natural flaws. They’re just both such brilliant actors and they were both wonderful together on screen.

And what do you hope people walk away thinking of feeling after watching ‘A Sacrifice’?

I hope it makes people think twice before believing just anything that they read or hear and check their sources thoroughly… and stay off the internet.

‘A Sacrifice‘ is now in theaters.