Autumn Equinox, late 20th century. Four friends travel to an isolated house deep in the forest to perform a witchcraft initiation ritual and complete the circle of the four elements. Lily, a pale and introverted twenty-something who has just joined the group, has been chosen to represent the element of air. But she has no idea that the true purpose of the ritual is something else entirely.
Grimmfest Says: Manu Herrera’s love letter to the era of horror cinema dearest to his heart – the 1990s – is an unapologetically old school shocker, which delights in taking tried and tested genre tropes and tweaking and twisting them in unexpected fashion. Set in 1999, the film seems at first like a more overtly Folk Horror riff on THE CRAFT, only to shift tone until it more closely resembles a demonic, Spanish-Gothic reworking of CARRIE. The film wears its influences with pride, recognising that in horror, sometimes what matters is not the unexpectedness of a twist, but the inevitability of it, the anticipation as to when it will happen, and the form it will take. And the film certainly spares no punches in the later scenes, when it comes to carnage and cruelty. But for all the blood and horror, there there’s an unexpected vein of lyricism and genuine weirdness, too, which suggests that there are some rather more unexpected influences here, too, such as Juan López Moctezuma’s 1977 cult classic ALUCARDA. Beautifully crafted, with strong performances, stunning cinematography, high end production values, and some truly wince-inducing practical effects, this is a crowd-pleasing call back to the classics that avoids false nostalgia, while reminding us of everything we loved about those films, and, more importantly, delivers a series of startling and shocking images and ideas that are entirely its own.
Followed by a Q&A with the director and cast.