Director: Paco Plaza
Year: 2018
Country: Spain
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Called out to a woman's house, a veteran detective recounts the story of how a young schoolgirl and her friends playing with a ouija board suddenly caused an onslaught of supernatural activity to befall the girl and her family leading to a race against time to stop the deadly forces.
Review:
For the most part, this one was a rather enjoyable and standout genre effort. Among it's better qualities is the fact that there's quite a prominent and profound supernatural aspect here that's grounded in reality rather nicely. The opening scenes of this, getting the quiet nature of their daily lives before the interruption of the supernatural with the girls playing with the ouija board in the hidden room. That sets this one off incredibly with the connection to the astronomy that was studied earlier in school and then turns into a creepy ouija-board game with the flickering lights, wildly-spinning planchette and the intermittent flashes to the blind nun at her school which then allows the game to take a darker turn with the spilled blood and sudden fire which provides this one with the hidden clues to the eventual possession later on.
This in turn gives the film a fantastic grounding once it lets the supernatural elements through based on this strong setup. From the attack at home where a noise draws her out of the bathroom before a force scalds the bathing brother under her care or a rather chilling breakfast sequence where it slowly dawns on her that something might be wrong with her due to the inability to react during normal activities at the dinner table. The most chilling aspect of this setup is the continued usage of the children's toy throughout the lighting up whenever something was nearby which is suitably highlighted in the stellar sequence against the children with her helpless to watch the oncoming spirit get closer through the shadows cast by the toy. Also featuring stellar blood-drenched hallucinations and plenty of strong psychological lead-ins, it prepares this nicely for the strong finale here.
The finale is perhaps the film’s strongest aspect, where it lets the wholesale supernatural antics out with abandon which gives this a fun, wild time. With the opening seance letting it be known that there’s something supernatural afoot with the situation as the children are shown to be targeted actively by the forces in the house, there’s a lot of creepy moments here with the inability to recognize the danger of situation once the glass jar is utilized to signal the emergence of the spirit into our world by traveling from the living room through the house into the bedroom where the spirit materializes and begins chasing her through the house. This brings up plenty of strong supernatural highlights of the spirits manifesting and forcing plenty of defensive action to take place for some solid jump-scares as well as utterly chilling revelations in a pretty shocking twist ending that gives this a fully enjoyable appeal that’s quite entertaining.
The other rather enjoyable element to be featured here is strangely the human drama at the center of the story. Since this one is going for the long-game approach of the possession gradually overtaking her, the setup here is marvelous at giving this a great atmosphere to set the supernatural antics within at a later time. The fractured home-life, where she has to take care of the younger children for most of the day including preparing the food, getting them dressed and ready for school, raise them to do their homework and fully take care of them like a parental figure would, this added onto her schooling struggles and gradually dissipating social life is made all the clearer as to how the struggles are going for her once the supernatural elements take over. This buildup from the character study into how it affects her, not only with the way her friends react but the behavior drives others around her to believe she's crazy which does have a profound effect on the different supernatural attacks present throughout here. The film might be a tad too long but that's about all that's really wrong here.
Overview: *****/5
Being an absolutely stellar entry in so many ways, this was a rather fun and enjoyable supernatural effort that really has a lot to like about it overall. Give this a chance if you're remotely fascinated by European genre efforts or find these supernatural pieces entertaining, while those that aren't as much a fan should heed minor caution with this one.
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