Horror Hexes!

 

Horror Hexes, Oh My!

By Kristin Battestella

These diverse, contemporary scares accent their cultural horrors with hexes, charms, and chills. Read on for protection, warnings, and mistakes from the parables herein.

Evil Eye – Traditional, superstitious Delhi mother Sarita Choudhury (Homeland) worries when her New Orleans daughter meets a too good to be true, suave, wealthy stranger in this 2020 Blumhouse/Amazon tale based on an Audible original. The culture and customs are immediately felt thanks to the styles, music, and protection charms. Old fashioned Mom follows Hindu astrology and warns that it's easy for a relationship to be perfect in the beginning. She's displeased with the whirlwind jewelry and doesn't want them to move in together unless they're married. It's too soon and she loves her daughter too much. Their horoscopes are exceptionally compatible, almost suspiciously, and our father objects to mom's invasive hiring of a private detective. He thinks she is inventing things to worry about, but viewers spot the possessive, fast red flags as our daughter quits her job and moves without telling mom. Video phone calls visualize the bothersome intrusions – differing time zones mean one side is always waking or disturbing the other. Family strife and realistic unease beyond the horror make flashes of mom's prior violent experience unnecessary until we get the whole story in full. Rather than a typical research montage, the right versus wrong argument is refreshing as the upsetting past comes to light in heartfelt dialogue. Are we suspicious because our mothers taught us to be? Children don't know everything about their parents or why they do what they do, and the stalking effects linger – knowing he is always there is frightful enough. Although the ladies bond over crap men, mom's demands about unborn curses and reincarnation sound crazy and controlling. She says she'll drop everything and get rid of the charms in face to face split screens, but chilling evidence and eerie revelations lead to in person confrontations where blood proves stronger than romance or evil. Domestic action rushes an ending that feels more like a straight thriller with no mystical connections, for the supernatural spiritual here won't be esoteric enough for viewers expecting full on horror. Fortunately, the family relationships and cultural drama anchor the supposition.

The Old Ways – A possessed American reporter is abducted by Veracruz brujas in this 2020 Mexican ode with dungeons, chains, herbs, and rituals. Our victim states who she is as if that gives her license to do anything – out of touch with her own culture while the interspersed English and Spanish reflect the miscommunication layers. Despite face paintings, occult drawings, goat milk, and salt across the threshold, she insists she doesn't have the “it” they fear. Cell phones and escape attempts are dealt with swiftly as her local relatives warn her she went where she shouldn't have gone. They will help rid her of the demon, but she still manages to retrieve her bag and shoot the heroin between her toes. After being bound and painted, she pretends, lying to fake her way out of the ritual before snakes slither in amid blood, hair in the mouth, and dead chickens. Arguments with her cousin reveal her twenty year absence, longstanding family troubles, and forgotten protective talismans from their abuela. Occasional diegetic music and a retro fan add flavor and heat while candles flicker and viewers question what we may or may not see in the darkest dungeon corner. Rustic demon documents, a bilingual dictionary, and “psychic surgery” escalate to bulbous sacs with extra teeth, vomiting, and snakes in the stomach. Rather than delays contrived for the audience or drawn out torture porn, the well paced demon encounters are about the possessed coming to believe, ask for help, and understand the terror of looking in the mirror and having something else look back. Healers instead of modern medicine and past exorcisms gone awry are told with personal sadness and lifelong grief – tearful pain with no need for today's whoosh flashbacks. The opening history and brief flash intrusions here are indeed unnecessary – nothing should visually take us from the dungeon congestion – for the suffering turned cleansing experience does better when this sticks to telling its tale without such modern cinema conventions. Chilling demon hints accent the one on one journey and willpower carried by the small ensemble. Serious research and ritual prep begats bones cracking, death whistles, visions in the smoke, Nahuatl demonology, and fatal trades embracing who you are. The ritual is recognizably similar to traditional exorcisms yet stays true to its unique cultural elements for horror viewers looking for something special.

Spell– Pleas, violence, and lingering scars open this 2020 parable starring Omari Hardwick (Power) and Loretta Devine (Waiting to Exhale). Rising above childhood cruelty has led to fancy suits, wealth, and law firm success. The high rise offices are sleek and shiny, but the self-involved teenagers joke about the backwoods past when a funeral summons the family to rural Kentucky. Dad Marquis, however, is unwilling to punish and have his children fear him like his father. He insists on winning with words because it is expected of them to fight and give in to Black stereotypes. Flying his own plane to Appalachia shows how much the elite family stands out at the rusty gas station convenience store with skulls and potions on the shelves. Marquis laughs at the outhouse and doesn't believe in the Mojo bags for protection against conjuring. He and his wife argue over their entitled teens belittling the country folks, ramping up the tension inside the cockpit as a storm brews over the mountains with lightning, maydays, and alarms. Marquis wakes in an attic bedroom, injured but under the care of an old fashioned couple objecting to his cursing yet assuring their hoodoo effigy is the best medicine. Marquis demands to know what happened to his family, for they are nowhere to be found at the out of the past rustic farm house. Vintage sewing machines, candles, and colloquialisms provide a suspicious quaint while calming powders, birds, and boogities invoke the rootwork folk magic. Marquis will pay whatever it takes for an ambulance and proper rescue team, but Ms. Eloise has no phone. Such tools meant to heal or communicate only become dividers among us but salt at the window will keep out the devil. Although he's not actually bound, shrewd filming angles above the bed or through the frame visualize Marquis' incapacitated position. A foot injury that's not what it seems, rainstorms, and revival meetings with animal parts, sacrifices, and chanting make for perilous escape attempts. The foul afoot doesn't underestimate the viewer thanks to suspect food, vomit, and one on ones where Marquis has to play along despite his belief that it's all psychosomatic mumbo jumbo. He's been trying to escape his past but must embrace who he is to cast the bones and beat them at their own magic. Belying use of the color white in the bed frame, locked doorknob, and innocuous pearls accents the eerie close calls in the tight house quarters before flashlights in the woods, ritual carvings, and bloody evidence lead to agony and desperation. The anguish and disturbia is personal – not drawn out viewer shocks. Frantic searches and hysterical digging reveal grimoires with flesh of my flesh spells and boogity doll bindings for and against. Marquis re-injures himself to maintain the ruse as torches and knives help him believe in a little fiery hoodoo of his own. The blu-ray edition features a half hour of deleted scenes increasing the out of touch kids versus Marquis' passiveness – strengthening his later man of action with more isolation. I'm surprised this received negative reviews with complaints about derivative occult cliches that completely ignore the history, cultural subtext, social commentary, and Black experience setting off the blood moon reap what you sow.

A Disappointing Skip

Old – Tropical sand, surf, palm trees, and cocktails set the vacation mood for M. Night Shyamalan's (The Sixth Sense) 2021 adaptation. The resort manager directs our families to a private reserve where beautiful caverns and inlet vistas lead to nosebleeds, chest pains, and bodies in the lagoon. When our guests try to leave the beach; zooms, warps, and blackouts send them back where they started amid knives, arguments, healing wounds, and growing tumors. Unfortunately, the dizzying, frustrating camerawork makes the viewer wonder what's significant. We can't see major action or important developments because the camera is always panning and pointing somewhere else. Although a stylistic choice mirroring the blink and you miss it metaphors, it's a terrible way to tell a story. Clunky, repetitive, simplistic dialogue; precocious kids who unrealistically introduce themselves to every stranger and ask who they are and what they do; disconnecting couples reiterating their relationships; and constantly quoted insurance statistics get...old...fast. Even with emergency surgical incisions rapidly closing, increasing schizophrenia, numerous sicknesses, swift decomposition, expedited youths, and a quickly deceased dog; it takes the group far too long to realize the a la Lost creepy happening. Any commentary on beauty, ageism, wealth, or divorce is never fully realized for most of the violence, wrinkles, rapid eating, even faster pregnancy, and growing young adults still mentally children happens off screen while someone watches from the cliffs as if we aren't supposed to know this is some kind of experiment. There's a lot of math about the hours per aging but we never truly witness the expedited struggle of old age because the interfering aesthetics constantly call attention to themselves. Rather than accenting our aging fears, such audience awareness detracts from the climbing fails, blurred vision, broken bones, and contorted backs. Underutilized doctors and nurses behave stupidly because the plot says so while diverse characters that should represent the social or racist dynamics become superfluous. Contrived childhood answers and notebooks found on the beach lead to perilous swims and an unnecessary meta meta with our director as actor. Seeing the accelerated aging from a pharmaceutical or medical perspective might have been intriguing, but the tacked on comeuppance underestimates the audience. Like low budget horror with a writer/director wearing too many hats, the indulgent M. Night was not the best writer or director for this material. The resort bookends should have been excised for more taut introspection, leaving what should be a provocative concept with no rewatch value.