A Primeira Comunhão

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]

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.

Actually 4.5 stars. I wasn't expecting too much and I was right. The film is a remake of 100 other films we've already seen, so much so that this one looks like it was made in the 90s. To my surprise, it's from 2022. La chica de la comunión lacks imagination, script, special effects, the acting is mediocre, as always, and the plot is nonsense that in the end you don't even understand, in a final effect that, yes, surprises, but as I said, you don't understand it. It entertains if it weren't for the stilted plot and the usual horror effects. The only thing that is appreciated is that it's not longer. You can tell that it's a subsidized production, when you see the government seal, you can't expect too much anymore.

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.

No pun intended - we have a movie here that tries to develop quite the ... well lore. It does give us a new evil of sorts, which I reckon we can give it kudos for. At least one I haven't heard before - but be that as it may, it is not that it invents anything too major or new. Horror movies try to build on things that have been done before. Best case is doing it with great finesse and good images at least.

I would argue this achieves to be well captured and edited. Still flawed and predictable of course. But if you like horror movies, you may find quite a lot to cherish here. The ending is a bit weird ... but then again, need I remind everyone what you have been watching?