27/11
It follows a child Emma on her journey to learn how to communicate with the spirit of a girl named Uxoa, who has been trapped in a hermitage for centuries, and so she tries to convince Carol, a skeptical medium, to help her… A tense, scary, melancholic, suffocating fantasy thriller with hints of a ghost story. A supernatural thriller full of spooky action, excitement, chills and lots of fear; however, some confusing and inexplicable reasons for some of the spooky events are never well explained. The film depicts a fictional story of the social reality that plagues a small town. It begins with a seemingly historical prologue that involves a plague, a chapel where the sick were imprisoned, and a regiment of birdmen, but it turns out to be a festive recreation of the small town’s annual festival when the chapel, believed to be haunted by little Usoa, is briefly opened. It follows a child named Emma (Maia Zaitegi) on her journey to learn how to communicate with the spirit of a girl named Uxoa, who has been trapped in a hermitage for centuries, and so she tries to convince Carol (Belén Rueda), a skeptical and fake medium, to help her. She literally has scars from her childhood, when her perhaps real middle mother seemed more interested in the spirit of a local girl than her own daughter. This is a decent and acceptable film with a number of not always sympathetic, deeply human and relatable protagonists. . This is a scary film that contains unsettling horror and an ominous atmosphere when menacing creatures appear. A tense, mysterious film full of excitement, suspense, chills, red herrings, scary twists. The mystery gradually begins to unravel until the surprising finale, resulting in a sentimental ghost story with a serious, brooding undertone in the style of The Orphanage or Pan’s Labyrinth, but with its own distinctive female focus. It is an attractive drama whose interest decreases as the effective saturation 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 the contemporary horror and fantasy genre. One of them is his frontal entry into genre cinema: he bets on fantasy without hesitation and adds personal drama. As the shots increase, he blows himself up and prevents us from talking about gems like 'Cerdita' . Despite this, Pereda manages to make a more than decent film, which is, however, worse than the previous one. Pereda has a great feel for the Gothic, relishing elements of Spanish horror while not really making a horror film. It turns out to be an adequate and decent film, but not remarkable. Starring Belén Rueda, who gives a nice performance in her usual style, she is a specialist in mystery and horror films, such as: Juliet’s Eyes , The Orphanage , No dormirás , Durante la tormenta , Pact , Orbita 9 and Telo . In fact, Belén Rueda is the closest thing Spain has to a horror heroine or “Scream Queen”, she fits well with the child prodigy Maia Zaitegi, who evokes the young Ana Torrent in Cria Cuervos or El espiritu de. la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive). The film was professionally directed by Carlota Pereda, who is clearly a talented writer and filmmaker . As a female drama with genre-like 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¨, which is based on the Goya winner for Best Short Film of the same name by Carlota Pereda herself, the Goya winner for Best Short Film in 2018 and also starring Laura Galán. Rating: 5.5/10.