Three women and a priest go against a haunting in a light-hearted romp that, to its credit, doesn't really skimp on the horror side of things. I really don't hold it against comedies when horror comedies fail to be scary, but this one isn't funny, either, and the story it tells is a hopeless muddle of clichés.
"Based on a true story"; Yeah, right - because that always gets us more invested. Who the hell do they do that for? In this case it's based on an existing paranormal investigation team in Spain called the Hepta group that apparently made the headlines a few decades ago. At least according to the movie, it's loose association of psychics, supernatural experts, and... a grandmotherly camera operator that bumble around, trading mildly funny barbs between them, and end up resolving a centuries-old curse as well as some extremely formulaic character conflicts.
Group founder Father Pilón (Emilio Gutiérrez Caba) gets things started by going to investigate a haunting at an antique shop alone, and he faces something so powerful and horrifying it ends up sending him to the hospital. That leaves his three associates to try and figure out what happened. You've got Sagrario (Belén Rueda, who... I honestly don't know what she brings to the group, other than being pretty enthusiastic and very telegenic. Gloria (Toni Acosta) is the acerbic, chain-smoking psychic who communicates with the netherworld via a... sigh... crystal ball (which, in what counts in this movie as a fairly decent running gag, she keeps forgetting where she put it), and Paz (Gracia Olayo), a grandmotherly type who's good with cameras and other technical shit. They also get a token young person (Ivan Massagué) to do science or something.
As they investigate the antique shop (with little help from the owners, whose very broad comic relief schtick starts grating fairly quickly) they discover that things might be complicated than they seem. And could this haunting be related to another case, one with heavy personal significance to Gloria? Well... yes, but don't expect things to be tied with any sort of grace.
The script (by Marta Buchaca and Fernando Navarro) is a complete mess that never manages to work out an engaging way to tell its overstuffed story properly, and tries to compensate by having feel-good character arcs that neatly resolve long-standing personal problems. Its central mystery is obfuscated to the point that when it comes to the fore the resolution is hilariously rushed, with maximum melodrama. The actual explanation is handled by a heavy dollop of exposition during the denouement - you can almost hear the scriptwriters say "Ah, fuck it".
The actresses are obviously having fun and have a good chemistry together, which helps the character-based humour a little. Sadly it's never more than mildly amusing, especially as the script tends to lazily exploit exaggerated character traits like the running joke that Gracia is a terrible driver, or give them extremely clichéd character conflicts that it somehow expects us to take seriously. Director Carlos Theron's direction is slick but impersonal - It looks good but never distinguishes itself, like a slightly higher-end TV movie.
The supernatural side of things is surprisingly beefy - don't expect a special effects extravaganza, as it maintains the facade of being a 'realistic' paranormal mystery, at least until the home stretch. But it at least features a reasonable spread of natural and supernatural threats arranged against our three middle-aged ghostbusters.
Not that it helps. This is your basic, basic Red N quota filler, and its mediocrity just makes the obvious effort behind it feel all the more disappointing.
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