11/25
It follows baby Emma on her journey to learn how to communicate with the spirit of an Uxoa girl who has been locked away in a hermitage for centuries, so she tries to convince Carol, a skeptical medium, to help her… Suspenseful, terrifying, a melancholic and suffocating fantasy, a thriller with hints of a ghostly story. A supernatural thriller full of gruesome acts, thrills, chills and many horrors; However, some confusing and inexplicable reasons for some ghostly events are never properly explained. The film depicts a fictional story of a social reality that afflicts a small town. It begins with an apparent historical prologue involving a plague, a chapel in which the sick were imprisoned and a regiment of birdmen, but turns out to be a festive reenactment of an annual festival in a small town when the chapel, believed to be her is pursued by the little Usoa, she opens for a short time. It follows the child Emma (Maia Zaitegi) on her journey to learn to communicate with the spirit of an Uxoa girl imprisoned in a hermitage for centuries, so she tries to convince Carol (Belén Rueda), a skeptical and fake medium, to help her. She is literally marked by a childhood where her mother, perhaps real, seemed more interested in the spirit of a little local girl than in her own daughter. It is a passable and acceptable film with a number of not always sympathetic protagonists, deeply human and endearing. . This is a horror film that contains an unsettling horror and an eerie atmosphere when menacing creatures appear. A tense and mysterious film full of excitement, suspense, chills, red herrings and frightening twists. Step by step, the secret begins to unfold until the surprising finale, resulting in a sentimental ghost story with a serious and brooding undertone in the style of The Orphanage or Pan’s Labyrinth, but with its own feminine orientation. It is an attractive drama whose interest diminishes as the effective overabundance of its tedious accumulation of supposedly terrifying elements increases. While « Cerdita » focuses on pure terror in « La Ermita », several elements confirm that Pereda is a key figure in the contemporary horror and fantasy genre. One of them is his frontal entry into genre cinema: without hesitation, he bets on the fantastic and adds personal drama to it. He deflates as the shots come, preventing us from talking about gems like « Cerdita ». Despite this, Peredo manages to make a more than correct film, but worse than the previous one. Pereda has a strong feel for the Gothic, savoring elements of Spanish horror without making a horror film. It turned out to be an adequate and decent film, but not remarkable. Starring Belén Rueda, who offers excellent acting in her usual style, is an expert in mystery and horror films such as: Julia’s Eyes, The Orphanage, No dormirás, Durante la tormenta, Pakt, Orbita 9 and Telo. In fact, Belén Rueda is the closest thing Spain has to a horror heroine or « Scream Queen », a good match for the prodigy Maia Zaitegi, who evokes a young Ana Torrent in Cria Cuervos or El espiritu de. la colmena (Spirit of the Hive). The film was professionally directed by Carlota Pereda, who is clearly a talented writer and filmmaker. As a female-driven drama with genre tones, this is the second solid showcase of Pereda’s talent. Won 2023: Sitges Film Festival: Official Feature Film Section (out of competition) and 2023: Goya Awards (Spain): Nomination for Best Special Effects. Her first film was the much better ¨Cerdita¨, based on Carlota Peredova’s Goya for Best Short Film of the same name, 2018 Goya for Best Short Film and also starring Laura Galán. Rating: 5.5/10.