Review: La ermita – Cineuropa

Regulars of the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival know that there are films that are constantly repeated in their huge program: those that believe in seducing audiences with their unstoppable accumulation of cheap horror, sinister presences and plot surprises for no reason. All. These are films that end up boring viewers with their lack of restraint, as if the recipe for desired success is to overdo an art film that would benefit from simplicity, restraint and synthesis. Chapel (+read also:
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movie profile), Carlota Pereda the second film unfortunately belongs to this terrible group.

And it’s a shame, because this new work was eagerly awaited. This comes from the director of one of 2022’s best surprises. Money box (+read also:
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interview: Carlota Pereda
movie profile), a bloody film set in a village in Extremadura that made excellent use of that Spanish region’s summer heat (and which won a well-deserved Méliès d’Or Award at this very festival). WITH ChapelPereda moved the action to the wettest forests of the Basque Country and Navarra in northern Spain to recreate a horror story based on the centuries-old tradition of their rich myths and legends.

One of them is about a girl (supposedly suffering from the plague) locked in a small chapel in her village, and little Emma (played by Maya Zaitegui) wants to learn how to communicate with his spirit. To do this, she tries to convince Carol (Belen RuedaSpain’s scream queen with titles such as Orphanage (+read also:
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), a (fake) medium to teach her how to talk to ghosts. Her help will be the only way to stay close to her sick mother(Loreto Mauleon) when she dies, seriously ill with cancer.

Thus, we are faced with an ambitious artifact that speaks of orphanhood, imperfect motherhood, ingrained traumas and painful childhoods, but from the fantasy genre, as Juan Antonio Bayona has already talked about in his book. A Monster Calls (+read also:
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movie profile). The narrative switches between past and present, between suspense and the supernatural, but its script (written by director Albert Bertrand Bas And Carmelo Viera) ultimately succumbs to an overdose of twists and aspirations, underscored by a soft and thunderous soundtrack that tries to emphasize the maudlin sentimentality of a drama whose interest wanes as the needless excess of the tedious accumulation of scary elements increases.

Chapel it is a Filmax production in association with Bixagu Entertainment. Filmax will also oversee its theatrical release in Spain (scheduled for November 17) and international sales.