19/48

Tense, terrifying, melancholic, suffocating fantasy thriller with hints of ghost story

Narrative

It follows the child Emma in her journey to learn how to communicate with the spirit of a girl, Uxoa, who has been trapped in a hermitage for centuries, so she tries to persuade Carol, a skeptical medium, to help her.. Supernatural thriller being filled with scary deeds, thrills, chills and lots of scares; however, some confusing and inexplicable, the reason for some creepy events are never well explained. The film portrays a fictional story of social reality that plagues a little town. It opens with an apparent historical prologue involving the plague, a chapel where the infirm were penned up and a regiment of beaky bird-men, but this turns out to be a pageant recreation as part of a small town’s annual festival, when the chapel thought to be haunted by little Usoa is opened for a brief spell.

A tense, mystery movie full of thrills, suspense, chills, red herrings, creepy twists and turns

It follows child Emma (Maia Zaitegi) in her journey to learn how to communicate with the spirit of a girl, Uxoa, who has been trapped in a hermitage for centuries, so she tries to persuade Carol (Belén Rueda), a skeptical and fake medium, but help her. The latter has literal scars from a childhood when her perhaps-real medium mother seemed to be more interested in a local little girl ghost than her own daughter. This is a passable and acceptable film wiith plenty of not always sympathetic, deeply human and relatable protagonists . This is a haunted movie that contains restless horror and sinister atmosphere when the threatening beings show up.

It deflates as the footage goes on and prevents us from talking about a gem like 'Cerdita'

Step by step mystery starts to unfold until its surprising finale, resulting to be a sentimental ghost story with serious, brooding undertones in the mode of The ̈Orphanage ̈ or ̈Pan’s Labyrinth ̈ but with its own distinctive female focus. It’s an attractive drama whose interest wanes as the effective glut of its tiresome accumulation of supposedly terrifying elements increases. While ̈Cerdita ̈focuses on pure terror in ̈La Ermita ̈ there are several things that confirm Pereda as a key figure in current horror and fantasy genre. One is his frontal entry into genre cinema: she bets on fantasy without hesitation, adding some personal drama.

Turns out to be an adequate and decent movie, but not remarkable

Nevertheless, Pereda manages to make a more than worthy film but inferior to the previous one. Pereda has a great eye for the gothic, relishing the trappings of Spanish horror while not really making a horror film. Stars Belén Rueda giving a nice acting in her usual style, she is an actress expert on mystery and horror films, such as: Julia’s eyes, The orphanage, You won’t sleep, During the storm, The Pact, Orbita 9, and The body. In fact, Belén Rueda is the closest thing Spain has to a horror heroine, or a 'Scream Queen', she is well matched with the child prodigy Maia Zaitegi who evokes young Ana Torrent in Cria Cuervos or El espiritu de the hive (Spirit of the Beehive).

The motion picture was professionally directed by Carlota Pereda who’s clearly a talented writer and filmmaker

As a female drama with tones akin to the genre, it is the second solid presentation card for Pereda’s talent. It won 2023: Sitges Film Festival: Official Feature Film Section (out of competition) and 2023: Goya Awards (Spain): Nominated for Best Special Effects. Carlota Pereda herself, winner of the Goya for the best eponymous short film in 2018 and also starred by Laura Galán. Rating: 5.5/10.