Credit: Netflix

Leave it to a room full of filthy rich celebrities to attend a charity gala about saving the planet, only to discover they could end up as the sacrifice themselves. Woosh, what a night! Netflix just released Chris Evans and Anya Taylor-Joy’s film Sacrifice, which starts with all the usual wealthy do-gooder pageantry and then introduces a doomsday cult which is convinced humanity can be saved by throwing three people into a volcano.

Joan, played by Taylor-Joy, is so convinced the apocalypse is coming that kidnapping people looks like the sane thing to her. Chris Evans, meanwhile, plays Mike Tyler, a washed-up Hollywood star whose career could use a miracle, and instead the poor man gets dragged into a hostage crisis with a volcano waiting in the wings.

Then director Romain Gavras gets to the final stretch and, bloody hell, suddenly Joan does not look as ridiculous as everyone thought. Her warnings start making sense, and that changes the whole ending.

By then, everyone who dismissed Joan has a much bigger problem on their hands.

Was Joan right about the apocalypse in Sacrifice?

Well… here comes the biggest bombshell, because Mike ends up in an underground bunker with Joan’s father, Gunnar, and that man is not some harmless eccentric hiding from the world. He is a scientist who has spent years studying volcanoes and is convinced an impending eruption could wipe out most life on Earth.

So yes, Joan may have been right about the threat. Gunnar has even built the bunker because he thinks the danger is that serious. But wait, before anyone starts singing Joan’s praises, though, her father shuts down the other half of her theory: he reckons sacrificing people will do absolutely nothing. Volcanoes are real, but there is no evidence whatsoever that throwing people into one could prevent an eruption.

Mike then finds out that he has somewhere safe to stay and decides survival is not enough because his career is in the bin, and he sees a chance to turn the whole nightmare into his comeback. So he contacts his agent, Oliver, and starts planning a return to the volcano, where he can offer himself up and then get whisked away by helicopter as he emerges looking like some grand hero. Man is parched, and only fame can quench that thirst!

Joan starts cracking too after a dangerous test meant to prove the cult has supernatural protection leaves her injured. Well, that’s put a rather huge dent in the whole divine protection theory, hasn’t it? It isn’t ideal when you have spent the whole film believing the volcano chose you for some grand purpose, and while Gunnar’s warnings start getting through, she still cannot let the mission go.

Then everyone ends up back at the crater, and the whole thing goes to hell. Billionaire Ben Bracken gets thrown into the volcano, while Mike’s staged hero moment collides with the rest of the mess. Police arrive, Mike survives, and the news confirms his rescue, although whether his big scheme to turn the whole ordeal into a career-defining show works is another matter.

And then… hold on. The same news report says the volcano could threaten the planet’s geological stability. Sorry, what? After spending most of the film treating Joan like she had lost the plot, we find out she may have been right about the catastrophe itself.

The sacrifice business still has no proof behind it, mind you, but that doesn’t make the ending any more comforting. Mike gets out alive while everybody else is left staring down the disaster Joan kept warning them about. The man who wanted to play the world’s saviour gets rescued, and the world itself is left without one. We smell irony… Do you?