I was frustrated watching this one. It's the first "horror/supernatural" foreign film I've seen so far, but have in the last year become a huge fan of foreign films & have now binged quite a few. I actually wasn't going to watch this one from the preview, but went ahead anyway and was pleasantly surprised to get into it by episode 3.
At first I thought the younger sister Sofia was going to be the "strong one" of the two based on the reaction of Eva, her older sister, when their parents went missing. To my disappointment, Sofia gets duped by the cult in so many ways, most disappointing from the start, was that there is absolutely no way a girl her age would just willingly go off into a forest with 3 strange men to "find out where her mom is." Also the fact that she saw her mom when she was underwater telling her to stay away. Sofia conveniently forgets that, and a short time later, believes the cult induced hallucinations of her mother calling to her instead.
The fact the cult kept telling her to stay away from Eva made me think that it was relevant. It wasn't. In fact, Eva ultimately unknowingly helps the cult by blocking Sofia from seeing her dad at one point who'd have warned Sofia about the cult sooner & would prevent her from going further into their clutches because when he does later it doesn't phase her much like we thought it should with what he can tell her from her parents past.
Next the investigating officer Guillén, we find out, is dying, so the demons of the cult can't "touch him." So I'm thinking "oh this probably is a set up for how it ends somehow." Nope! Literally aids in the first demon dying randomly, but has nothing to do with the ending, which was the ultimate disappointment; firstly because it felt rushed considering the slow build of 7 episodes to it. Second, Sofia could have easily done what her mother did and refused to lift the 5th veil, but instead she does it leaving viewers stunted wondering why she did it. It also left unanswered questions on side stories that we didn't get to see wrap up.
Despite this I gave it 5 stars because I liked the production of it. The scenes visually, special effects were decent, and the way of storytelling was very good.
Just a shame - if they changed a few things to the characters personalities vs their story role, paid stricter attention to story details (including making focused details actually relevant within the story) & a better ending it would have been sooo much better!
If you are one who only likes a slow burn built story to have a full satisfying ending then I'd recommend you skip this one because you'll hate it, but if you enjoy watching foreign films because you find it fun to see cultural differences, locations, and can appreciate many different levels of film it was fun that way.
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