Sorcery (2024)

A family of German settlers in Chile engage the services of the young "Rosa" (Valentina Véliz Caileo) to keep their home for them until one morning, they discover that all of their sheep have died. With a rope loosely tied about each one's neck, "Stefan" (Sebastian Hülk) immediately concludes that this is the work of the indigenous population and starts to take it out on the girl. Her father intervenes only for the farmer to set his dogs on the man. Now rather brutally orphaned, she leaves to seek justice from the mayor (Daniel Muñoz). He proves worse than useless, but the priest suggest she try to find a roof with "Mateo" (Daniel Antivilo). It turns out that he is a decent man, surviving on subsistence fishing and well versed in the more mystic arts of their traditions. "Rosa" wants to avenge her father's murder and now, more and more absorbed into the "Brujería", events in their small village causes consternation for her previous employers as their two sons go missing - just as two young, and fairly docile, cubs arrive! What now ensues sees the Christian community react with a combination of fear and militarism, but will that be sufficient to combat the power of the sorcery that is clearly at work demanding restoration of the equilibrium with both nature and amongst the divided and bigoted people. It's quite slowly paced, and it might have been filmed in the wettest place on the continent, but that works quite well to illustrate the timelessness of a way of life that thrived before the colonists arrived. The symbiotic relationship between people and nature and faith is quite potently, yet delicately, demonstrated by some charming acting and the design of the production looks good and earthy too. It's not your traditional style of horror film - indeed it doesn't really fit into that genre at all, but it's still quite an eerie and creepy exercise in leaving the forces of nature in peace and doing unto others...

Jun 18, 2024