I'll say it right now: supernatural films don't scare me. Being a non-religious person, the subject matter always seems irredeemably hokey to me, and certainly the idea of a film about the aftereffects of a seance seemed like a recipe for a whole lot of eye-rolling cliches.
Well, the film does have the characteristic cliches that plague nearly every film of this nature, but the film's production values are otherwise so top-notch and the execution so on-point that these can all be forgiven.
Taking place in Spain in the 1990s, the film uses its locations to full effect (the apartment the title character lives in would be creepy enough on its own, and don't even get me started on that creepy school basement), the music and sound design are top-notch, the acting is convincing, and the scares, albeit cliche, are directed and edited so well that one can forgive any shortcomings in the script department.
The film oozes with atmosphere throughout, aided in no small part by an amazingly simple yet effective score that really heightens the tension. Plot-defining moments such as the seance in the school basement (which begins the trouble) are made all the more eerie by the music, which, combined with the stellar direction, really sets the mood for what's to come.
But the film works beyond the horror level as well, painting a convincing and utterly sad portrait of a family still coping with the loss of one parent and the ensuing challenges this loss forces on our main character, whose motherly surrogacy isolates her from her friends and makes her all too relatable to those of us who led turbulent teenage years.
By the time the eerie ending came, I barely felt like an hour and forty-five minutes had gone by--I was having too much fun.
Well, the film does have the characteristic cliches that plague nearly every film of this nature, but the film's production values are otherwise so top-notch and the execution so on-point that these can all be forgiven.
Taking place in Spain in the 1990s, the film uses its locations to full effect (the apartment the title character lives in would be creepy enough on its own, and don't even get me started on that creepy school basement), the music and sound design are top-notch, the acting is convincing, and the scares, albeit cliche, are directed and edited so well that one can forgive any shortcomings in the script department.
The film oozes with atmosphere throughout, aided in no small part by an amazingly simple yet effective score that really heightens the tension. Plot-defining moments such as the seance in the school basement (which begins the trouble) are made all the more eerie by the music, which, combined with the stellar direction, really sets the mood for what's to come.
But the film works beyond the horror level as well, painting a convincing and utterly sad portrait of a family still coping with the loss of one parent and the ensuing challenges this loss forces on our main character, whose motherly surrogacy isolates her from her friends and makes her all too relatable to those of us who led turbulent teenage years.
By the time the eerie ending came, I barely felt like an hour and forty-five minutes had gone by--I was having too much fun.