Director: Christopher Alender
Year: 2021
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Possession
Plot:
Awakening in a small Mexican village, a reporter who originally grew up in the area and sent to investigate local myths discovers that she's being subjected to a ritualistic exorcism due to the belief that she's been possessed by a demon and soon comes to realize her captors might be right about her.
Review:
There was a lot to like with this effort. Among the films' more impressive features is the enjoyable storyline that manages to bring about a rather impressive atmosphere due to this setup. After the film opens on her with a bag over her head and then immediately placed into a situation where her captors begin putting her through rituals that are intended to exorcise a demon of some sort but keep failing to convince them otherwise as they go through their journey is a rather strong time here. Combined with the initial reasoning for her being there to cover a story about the practices that go on in the village and how that ties into their mission.
Once the setup is established, the film is quite fun with the series of stories and revelations that come about with her in their care. Since it's told in flashback format involving the trip out to the fateful caves and how they come to believe in her possessed state, the unraveling of the hidden aspects of the film featuring her connection to the village as a child, the failure to maintain any of the culture or traditions that she's been sent to study creates an intriguing second half to things. With there being just enough doubt thrown in about trusting everything due to her drug addiction and some great pushback on what brought her into their possession this has a lot to really like overall.
As well, the film's other positive is the actual events that are shown here during the rituals. Waking up covered in ornate ritualistic symbols drawn on her body in blood, continually fed drugged food and mild to prepare for the rituals to come, being tied down with spikes through her hands and feet while her body twists and contorts itself are just some of the more enjoyable aspects they perform on her. The big confrontation in the finale where they learn the full truth about the demon possessing her and band together to fight it offers a rather impressive set of rituals and black magic to become a fun highlight sequence before featuring an engaging enough twist for even more action and supernatural antics to come about. These are all enough to make this one highly enjoyable overall.
There isn't much to dislike here but there are some flaws. The main issue here is that there's a jarring setup to come about due to the flashback nature of everything. It almost feels like dropping us into things without explanation and after three or four events have already transpired with the way we're introduced to her being captured and starting in on their exorcism rituals, almost as if more should've been revealed before dropping us so quickly into this storyline with this setup. As well, there's also the somewhat underwhelming storyline that could've been explored more with her drug addiction that could've been explored more in order for an interesting subplot to emerge over whether that was the source behind everything or not yet doesn't go anywhere. It's not detrimental but lowers this one slightly.
Overview: ****/5
With a great storyline, plenty of fine supernatural action, and not too much in the way of detrimental flaws, there's quite a lot to like here which really offers a lot overall. Fans of traditional local cinema, supernatural or exorcism films as well as those curious about the presentation will have a lot to like here while tired of the overall approach of the genre should heed caution.
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