Director: Jimena Monteoliva
Year: 2017
Country: Argentina
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Psychological
Plot:
After being abused by her boyfriend, a woman returns to her small apartment complex by herself to help recover from the miscarriage she suffered in the incident, but when she starts to suspect something supernatural is living in the house with her, she tries to figure out what it wants and why.
Review:
Overall, this was a pretty solid and enjoyable psychological genre effort. Among the brighter factors for the film comes from the standout setup involving the gradual discovery of whether or not the whole thing is really occurring. The opening tragedy that gets everything going, from the woman waking up in the hospital days after being beaten and finding the attack has caused a miscarriage, which has no real chance at retribution due to the inability to properly launch her quest to understand what’s going on around the apartment, is a great start to this one.
The sympathetic turn was afforded to her because of the abuse of the situation, and getting on with her life means that the later scenes of her trying to come to terms with the haunting sounds and crying voices from within the apartment are incredibly chilling, with the whole thing being about her being unaware of the truth. This all affecting her mental health and sanity, causing everything to feel like she’s genuinely going crazy and being unable to tell what’s going on in the apartment, helps to provide a lot to like here.
There are some issues here that hold this down. The main issue here is that the speculative nature of what’s going on involving the ghosts in the house makes for a confusing narrative of what they actually want. There are many times when it suggests the spirits intend to protect her, but they certainly could have made the job easier if they had not pushed the boyfriend into a state of violent psychosis, setting off the chain of events in the first place. While we are probably supposed to assume it was always in him, deep down, but it only comes out in the fateful flat, the whole thing has little about it that ties into this belief.
The other factor to be had with this one is the rather dreary pacing that renders the film feeling far longer than it actually is. The amount of time spent with her wandering around the apartment, trying to deal with the memories of the past, looking for the source of the supernatural entities haunting her, or just going through the motions of trying to deal with her abusive boyfriend, makes it rather slow-going in doling out the supernatural antics that would be expected in this kind of scenario. The emphasis on mood and atmosphere keeps the action down for the most part.
Overview: ***.5/5
A genuinely solid and likable psychological horror film, this one manages to get quite a lot to like that it holds itself up over those negative factors, which are just slightly detrimental overall. Those with an interest in this kind of genre fare or who are fine with the style will have a lot to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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