Trini (Anabel Alonso's voice) is the most famous flamingo dancer in the world and she has an envious life. Everyone loves her dancing, but when a seemingly innocuous domestic accident takes her husband's life, a deep depression falls over Trini forcing her to quit the stage. Damien's behaviour, her 8-year-old son, becomes uncontrollably forcing Trini to call upon doctor after doctor to provide relief. When no answers can be found, there is left only one possible explanation: Damián (voice of Santiago Segura, as well as Bishop and Satán) has been possessed by a dark spirit. Thus, her son Damián begins to show signs of dementia, possessed by a mischievous devil who makes him commit the funniest and cruelest misdeeds. Trini begins a desperate quest to repair her shattered family. On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Trini contacts people to solve the weird possession. This search eventually leads to a defrocked priest called Father Lenin (Josema Yuste's voice), whose own severe spiritual crisis may not bode well for what lays ahead. With no where to turn and all other hopes to save her shattered family exhausted, Trini must place her faith in a man whose faith is... questionable!
In the film there are sympathetic but very bizarre roles: a famous female flamenco dancer and a male matador, and especially the Basque priest repudiated by the church and who is going through a crisis of faith. Muppet-gore and animation-gore has been done before, but this is first time being made a claymation-splatter. This is the feature film debut of Samuel Ortí, better known as Sam. Directed with the stop motion technique, made of plasticine; it turns out to be an acidic social satire that is very critical of Spanish folklore and the clichés of sensationalism that touches on celebrities in the press and the gossip shows, as well as horoscope gurus and other fake mediums. With references ranging from the very TV presenters José María Iñigo, Carmen Sevilla to Karmele, Jesús Mariñas or even Belén Esteban.
A crazy, outspoken, cartoonish and zany comedy that leaves no issue unturned. The story is about a demonic son who's subjected to an exorcism brings to mind a few classic movies, then you don't know the half of it. This movie's structure is basically a sequence of spoofs and references to dozens of movies. Also paying homage to several legendary films such as: The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, Stepfather, Gremlins, Hellraiser, Alien, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Frankenstein, and Indiana Jones, which are some of its references.
This movie feels like Alex de la Iglesia horror with a black sense of humor and a mean-streak, combined with the comedy of Aardman studios. And this should come as no surprise as it features Santiago Segura. There is very entertaining trashy and mean streak throughout, featuring things like clay bodies being ripped apart, sliced and crushed in very gory ways, eyeballs are not just plucked but impaled with other body parts, dogs are not just impaled but also have their poop crushed out of them, there is a parade of nasty prostitutes, humiliation of a priest, naked grandmas, etc. The superb claymation is lovingly detailed. How you feel about this movie will depend on what you think of its random structure of silly spoofs, but it's definitely highly entertaining and well done.
The motion picture was professionally directed by a Spanish craftsman Samuel Ortí (Sam), who worked for Aardman, only it seems that he vented all of his frustration with Aardman light-fluffy-cuteness here. Since Sam surprised us with his first animated short film Encarna (2003), there hasn't been a year in which we haven't expected a new short from him on the short film festival circuit, always with that gypsy, parodic and mischievous touch with a lot of malice. Thus Hermético (2004), Semántica (2005) until his leap into film production with El ataque de los Kriters asesinos (2007), The werepig (2008) and his latest short piece Vicenta (2010) which would receive his first and well-deserved nomination at the Goya Awards. Master of classic clay stop-motion, Sam has been immersed in this first feature film that is being released with great success after various years without directing, Pos eso (2015). Rating: 6/10.
