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After coming home from a seance, where a spirit called Ricardo wanted to get
into contact with him, psychiatrist Julio (Ramón Langa) is called to the scene
of a murder by his old cop-buddy Sala (Carlos Sobera).
The crime scene, a church, gives proof of a gruesome ordeal: 5 people, all
of the same family, were shot by the killer, before he blew his own head off.
The problem for Julio is now to find a motive, & all the clues he has got
are at first the killer's diary & his grilfriend Lidia (Barbara Elorrieta),
who escaped the slaughter, but is now traumatized in a hospiotal's mental ward.
In the diary, Julio finds the story of a careless young couple, Ricardo
(Rodolfo Sancho) & Lidia, who one day happened to come to a quiet rural
village, where Ricardo has inherited the house of his parents. No big deal, it
seems, wouldn't he mention the fact that he was a descendant of the Forqué
family ... which seems to immediately alarm the villagers - 'cause it seems, in
the village there has been an age-old feud between the Forqués & the
Chornets, which was thought to have ended with the Forqués gone, but now, as
the boy is back, seems to gain momentum again - but if a family feud in itself
wasn't bad enough, it also happens to be that both the Forqués and the
Chornets are families of witches & warlocks ...
Back in the now, Julio is finally able to talk to Ricardo's girl Lidia, who
has at last come to her senses again but lost large parts of the memory of the
gruesome goings-on. And she fills Julio in with some of the backgrounds of
Ricardo's change from a careless young man to a vengeful warlock, as he - first
by his mad uncle Miguel (Augustín González), then by his relatives Liceo
(Txema Blasco) & Eulalia (Rocío Munoz) - became more & more entangled
into his family's history.
& the history went as following:Many many decades ago Liceo wanted a
son, but when his wife was unable to give him any more children, he looked for
another woman to do his bidding, & after many amorous adventures he fell in
love with Eulalia - a Chornet - & they procreated the som he always wanted.
His wife though, out of jealousy, poisoned Eulalia, killing both her & the
unborn child in her womb. Upon learning that, the rest of the Chornet family
cursed Liceo & all of the Forque family, a curse, Liceo would not survive -
so in case you wondered, yes, Liceo & Eulalia who nurture Ricardo's thirst
for revenge are actually spirits ...
Another piece of the puzzle comes from Ricardo himself, who is now a spirit,
& actually contacted Julio at the above mentioned seance: He tells Julio he
was nothing but a pawn in Eulalia's & Liceo's game of avenging themselves
on the Chornets once & for all. & he tells Julio, that Lidia actually
holds the whole truth in her, it's just a question of getting it out.
Since Julio is, as mentioned, a psychiatrist, he of course proceeds to
hypnotize the girl, who now tells him the end of the story, the ordeal in the
church: It all started with the 5 Cornets holding a Black Mass, trying to once
& for all rid them of the last of the Forqués, but little do they know
that he, along with Liceo & Eulalia, is watching them from the gallery,
& at one point jumps down, shotgun in hand, & proceeds to shoot them
all. Lidia has watched it all from a window, & once he notices her, he
chases after her, wanting to kill her, too (I guess), but suddenly is shot by
Eulalia ... why ? Because Lidia is pregnant from Ricardo, carrying the last of
the Forqués ...
With the case solved (despite several clues not quite fitting in), Julio
happily drives home, until he suddenly sees Ricardo again, sitting in the back
seat, telling him to look after Lidia one more time ... & would you know
it, Julio finds Lidia burning down the whole village, to make life safe for her
son, truly the last Forqué ...
The method of storytelling chosen for this film - having the story unfold in
the opresent as well as the past & in a dream-sphere to make up a full
picture - is much more fascinating than the story itself, consisting mainly of
clichéd supernatural mumbojumbo, with logic even within this framework - which
is so crucial to a ood mystery - sometimes just thrown out of the window, so in
the end, the audience is left with quite some clues that don't match up (&
they are mentioned in the film, too).
So, without a doubt, this is an interesting exercise in labyrinthine
storytelling, but is it a great movie ? Nope, not really.
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