Influência

There is some good here, the different cultural ideas of the horrific makes the film feel more original than a lot of mediocre modern possession horror. There are some real points here about parental abuse and how it can be covered up and passed on.

At the same time however it is all over the place. The narrative structure swerves all over the place and the message, tone and overall horror is kind of lost in a confusing haze.

Overall this movie is definitely not trash, and there is some good to be found, it's just a bit messy, so if you are used to well thought out and clear cut narrative then you'd probably want to avoid this one.

I didn't find this to be a slow burn as some have sugggested, but I found it to be very disjointed and didn't pace well. Too many things are happening that you don't know what the story is, until toward the latter half, and even then it was still all over the place. It is like a ghost movie, no wait its a possession movie, no wait its a witch movie, no its a revenge movie.....sigh. It is like it didn't know where to go with all of the activity...oh yeah there is poltergeist activity too. Good grief this was difficult to watch and try to stay focused.

The nurse Alicia (Manuela Vellés) is summoned by her sister Sara (Maggie Civantos) and returns to the dark house of her mother Victoria (Emma Suárez) with her husband, the unemployed electrician Mikel (Alain Hernández), and their ten year-old daughter Nora (Claudia Placer). Alicia and Victoria have been estranged to each other for many years and now Victoria is terminal in comatose and Alicia will help the nurse Ana (Marta Castellote). Alicia has recollections from her abused childhood, when Sara and she were maltreated and controlled by her mother in rituals of witchcraft. Mikel finds a room with witchcraft objects and occult books that belong to Victoria, shows to his wife and they keep it locked. Soon Nora communicates with Victoria and changes her behavior, befriend the creepy outcast girl Luna (Daniela Rubio) and Alicia realizes that her daughter in under control of the witch Victoria.

"La influencia", a.k.a. "The Influence", is a creepy horror film developed in slow pace like most of the European movies. The atmosphere is dark and gruesome, the performances are great but the story becomes predictable when the lawyer reads the testament. The screenplay could be better but the underrated "La influencia" is a good horror film. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Imagine a bad cook trying to make hearty soup. Get everything in your kitchen and chuck it into a pot and imagine it will turn out ok. What you get is every cliche of every horror film you've ever seen thrown together with a weak narrative. Sadly boring and un-engaging.

I read a lot of really bad reviews for La Influencia but to be honest I think most of them are a bit too harsh. I agree that it's not a masterpiece, certainly not in the horror genre, but for a Spanish horror movie it has its moments. A couple jump scares, a story that is suspenseful enough to be entertaining, and a cast that might never win an Oscar but that is better than average. All in all La Influencia isn't that bad, just don't have too high of expectations.