13 Exorcismos

"Exorcism movies, with the exception of some classics of the genre like 'The Exorcist' and 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose', are mostly religious pamphlets. After all, they position church representatives (usually priests) as saviors of the possessed - leaving aside other solutions and other possibilities for this to happen. '13 Exorcisms' starts exactly like this: the young Laura (María Romanillos) plays with what she shouldn't and then begins to show the first symptoms of being possessed. She sees hauntings, hears voices. Until the end of the second act, director Jacobo Martínez ('Grande Hotel') inserts elements that make us think that the Spanish feature film will follow other paths. Instead of bringing only possession elements, the script has events that provoke the audience to think that Laura actually has some kind of serious psychological condition. She does not take medication, has family members with issues and has clear symptoms of schizophrenia. The movie thus seems to be heading in a direction to problematize the exorcism, pointing to cases in which, instead of treating it as a medical and psychological issue, family and Church see everything as the work of the devil. It would be a brilliant move. But no: '13 Exorcisms', from one hour to another, gives up on this idea and goes back to scary territory. There are some things that work here and there, such as the sound design and the performance of young María Romanillos ('Consequences'), but that's it: the movie is a banal horror, with nothing new, to bring some scares and have fun with friends."