The Communion Girl

After a wild night of partying, a woman and her friend come across a strange doll in the desert which draws them into a nightmarish series of hauntings by the ghostly owner of the doll and must uncover the sinister origins behind its appearance to leave the mystery behind them.

Overall, this was a decent enough if somewhat problematic genre effort. One of the better elements here is the way this works with the build-up of the spirit's presence in the family. The first half here dealing with the friend group interacting with the party and her home life signals the discovery of the doll and how it's affecting her giving this a solid start. There's some fun to be had with the idea of the town's superstitions figuring into the events to write it off and the intrusion on their lives and how it's obvious something is wrong that gives everything its impact. As this comes off the way it does, the second half bringing about the start of the hauntings is all rather enjoyable like the rest of those kinds of genre efforts. Since we're graced with an appropriately creepy backstory for the ghostly figure and its equally chilling appearance of it, the scenes where it appears and torments or even outright kills others in fine sequences that makes its supernatural powers felt, giving this plenty of somewhat suspenseful attacks. Even the idea of how to stop the ghost is fun, having several solid connections to its backstory and being rather fun which gives this a lot to like. There are some issues here that bring this one down. Among the biggest drawbacks to this one is the overly familiar setup and storyline that makes this feel quite predictable. Working as a straightforward throwback to this style of Asian ghost movie featuring the wronged spirit coming back and haunting those who get caught up in its path. There's not much in the way of deviation taking place here as it runs along this type of story and makes it quite easy to see the beats coming for easy predictability, lessening the tension somewhat. The other drawback here is that there's not much in the way of action for long stretches of the running time leading to some moments where it plods along. Several of the sideplots here, with the friends' home life being quite troublesome and outright abusive is an angle that doesn't need all the time devoted to it that it does, and several parts of the investigation lead to characters meeting up several times over so they can come off redundant. The repeated nature of the genre setup comes into play as well, making this come down from where it should be.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Violence, drug use, and children-in-jeopardy.

This was a movie that I found when looking for new releases on Shudder. I saw the date of release on the Internet Movie Database. Doing a bit of digging, it does seem this is one where it did festival rounds and its wide release is 2023. What caught my attention was the title and the poster. I figured this would be a religious based horror film, which I'm a big fan of. I also noticed the names and figured this was from a Spanish speaking country as well. Other than that, I went blind.

Synopsis: May 1987. While returning from a nightclub and after having taken drugs, the new girl in town Sara (Carla Campra) and her friend Rebe (Aina Quiñones) find a doll wearing a communion dress. From that moment, their lives become a living hell.

We start this with a creepy nursery rhyme as we get the opening credits. It then shifts over to a young woman who isn't sleeping well. She is covered in sores. Her name is Sonia (Claudia Riera). A young man shows up and his name is Tano (Daniel Rived). He tries to calm her down, but she sees a young girl in a communion dress. There is also an old doll that is dressed similarly on the floor.

The movie then shifts four years into the future. Sara has moved here with her sister, Judit (Olimpia Roch) and parents, Amparo (Maria Molins) and Antonio (Xavi Lite). It is the day of her sister's communion. Sara is joined in a pew at the church by her new best friend, Rebe. They have plans to go to a nightclub that night. The timing is important as neither of them have their licenses so they need someone to drive. During this communion ceremony, Remedios (Anna Alarcón) shows up looking for her daughter named Marisol (Sara Roch).

It takes convincing of her parents, but Sara goes out with Rebe. It is during their time at the club that we meet a drug dealer, Chivo (Carlos Oviedo). Sara takes a liking to his friend, Pedro (Marc Soler). Things don't go as planned as these two young women's way and they're stranded. They walk and try to hitchhike. Their luck changes when Chivo and Pedro pull up. Rebe doesn't want to ride with them, but Sara must get home. While they're driving, Sara sees a young girl walk across the road. They stop and search for her. We see that the other three know something that she doesn't. Sara does find the doll from the beginning.

She tries to figure out who the doll belongs to, but no one will talk. She develops a rash like Sonia has in the beginning. The other three from that night do as well. They also start to see this little girl in a communion dress. Sara tries to figure out what she wants and who she is before it is too late.

That is where I'll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is that I enjoy the basic premise here. I'm not sure why this is set in the past though. That doesn't factor much into what we see. My guess was to avoid cellphones and the internet. I'll give credit here to it not being in our face. There is that timeless feel there as well. I also enjoy that we are getting a haunting/ghost film that involves religion and this child who passed on.

I do have to shift to a negative here though. This borrows heavily from Ringu. The elements are changed, but how the story plays out is quite similar. Even to what happens at the climax. There is a reveal here at the end that I wasn't expecting. It didn't move the needle too much for me though unfortunately. The pacing also feels off to me. I wonder if having teens that we follow is the reason. They all aren't safe, which is good. I struggled to feel the stakes still. Sara gets grounded and nothing comes of it. Her parents are working as much as they are though, so I get it.

Now that I've fleshed that out, let me get back to positives. I do like the religious angle and take on the curse story. Personally, I think elements are overused today, especially with vilifying Christianity. I am an atheist, so if I'm saying then it should carry more weight. Regardless, I do think this should have leaned into the church and religion more. There is a subplot here with Padre Manuel (Manel Barceló) that gets introduced. That doesn't go anywhere. By not doing more of their own thing, this feels generic. For a good part of this, I wanted to watch Ringu or The Ring that manages this subject better.

I think next then I'll go to another encouraging aspect and that would be the acting. Campra was good as our lead. I like the fact that she is new to this town and she is pulled in different directions. Adults want her to stay away from Reba due to her reputation. I've been this age so that worked. Quiñones is good as her friend who I've said is rough around the edges. I like Soler as well as Oviedo. Olimpia Roch works as the younger sister here. She adds tension when she falls into peril which adds something. Other than that, Molins, Lite, Alarcón, Sara Roch and Victor Solé were all solid. The rest of the cast also rounded this out for what was needed.

All that is left then to go into is filmmaking. I thought that this was made well enough. The cinematography is good. It captures the dreariness of this town it is set in. That worked for me. They do rely on dream sequences a bit too much. There are times it fits, especially when it comes to haunting and with the resolution. I don't normally care for them so there is that. The effects are fine. It looks like they relied a bit too much on CGI which I'm not always a fan of. I've already said the pacing is off. Other than that, the soundtrack fit what was needed. I do like the nursery rhyme, but they don't use it enough.

In conclusion, I do think this that this does good things. Having this ghostly girl haunting these people who come in contact with her doll are good. The problem is that this feels too close to other movies that use this premise better. I'd say that the acting was good. There are creepy elements. I'd even say that this is well-made. The dreariness of this town and the nightmare sequences help with the atmosphere. This just came up short for me. It doesn't do enough to set itself apart in my opinion. I'd still recommend it if what I've said piques your interest as it wasn't a bad watch by any stretch.

My Rating: 6 out of 10.

I quite liked this movie. I wanted to rate it higher, unfortunately its unoriginality and predictability kept me from doing so... but it was definitely entertaining. The story is very "been there done that". Still interesting, just not wildly enthralling and following a familiar formula leading to the predictability.

I'd say the most successful part of this was the acting. I thought everyone did a really good job and that was a large factor in the level of engagement in this film. Small shout out to the girl in the very beginning. She had a very short scene but she killed it.

They did a good job with keeping up the spooky, atmospheric vibe throughout. It was disappointing that every time they showed the "monster" I was taken out of the moment because to me the prosthetics were unconvincing and looked a tad silly. I don't know what the budget was like on this production, but the movie looked really nice, so I was surprised by the kinda subpar special effects and CGI but that's not a deal breaker.

The story definitely could've used some fine-tuning and a little zest. The pacing was certainly on the slower side and edged on too slow but was fine. It started to get particularly interesting all of a sudden and then it ended... which was unfortunate. I would have loved to cut some of the filler that slowed the pacing down and had what was the ending happen at the beginning of the third anct and gotten some more story.

Regardless, I think this movie was successful as is and a lot of that success was carried by the actors so, bravo guys. 5.5 rounding down to a 5, would recommend.

Unfortunately, somebody had the bright idea to do this whole movie in some strange moon man language. Almost impossible to understand what anybody is saying. It seemed like whoever tried to make this movie did not listen to anybody about this strange, alien language coming out of the actors mouths. I imagine this would be very hard for a script writer. This happened to me once before, with a supposed masterpiece of a film called peter pans labyrinth. I think the guys name was Dario argentino or something, but it had stunning visuals, but you just couldn't understand a damn word anybody was saying. One of the few movies that I actually walked out on. But at least the box office gave me my money back. I'm pretty sure this film marked the eventual downfall of all the new Disney . In most cases, these artsy fancy kind of movies are just not worth the time to try and decipher or get any kind of meaning whatsoever out of them.

Let me start off by saying this movie brings nothing new to the table. Two teenagers leave a party by foot and get picked up by some guys in their car. Our protagonist Sara sees a girl in a white dress and shortly after they find a doll in the woods. They get told about a local story that whoever sees this girl is cursed. That's the basic premise of the movie but I think the movie did a decent job with it. We have seen similar stories a thousand times before and by now it's just annoying.

But I think this movie's execution is good enough for the movie not to be complete trash. Probably the most interesting character is Sara's best friend Rebe and her relationship with her abusive alcoholic father. Sara also has some trouble at home because she got grounded and has a strict father. These relationships make you empathize with them because they just want to save their friends and themselves from the curse received from the doll. Also the makeup of the evil entity looks good and whenever she's on screen the movie is tension filled. Like I said the movie does nothing new and we've seen it all before but the execution is overall okay for a one-time watch. [5,5/10]