The content space is more crowded than ever, making it challenging to keep up with all of the genre titles available via streaming platforms, VOD, and theatrical releases. It can be overwhelming just to browse. To help prevent great indie horror from slipping through the cracks, we’ll spotlight our favorites every month.
Possession horror often retreads the same ground The Exorcist forged decades ago, which means it’s become harder and harder for the subgenre to offer any surprises for the longtime horror fan. One sure-fire way to breathe new life into it is to come at possession horror from a completely different cultural perspective and introduce new layers of mythology and mysticism. Netflix quietly released The Old Ways, with nearly zero fanfare, on August 25, almost completely burying a surprising new take on possession horror.
The Mexico-set exorcism tale gets reinvigorated with brujería and a new metaphor for possession.
Cristina (Brigitte Kali Canales) has haunting memories of her childhood in Veracruz, particularly of her bed-ridden mother deep in the throes of an illness as the local bruja performs an exorcism. Now, she finds herself back in her ancestral hometown with a burlap sack over her head and held captive by the bruja. Despite warnings, Cristina traveled from Los Angeles to Veracruz to investigate the La Boca ruins and now finds herself kidnapped and subjected to a series of rituals. The bruja insists that Cristina is possessed and will not go free until the demon is cleansed from her body.
The keyword here is cleansed. The bruja, Luz (Julia Vera), relies on her son Javi (Sal Lopez) to act as warden as they pin Cristina down and extract teeth from her abdomen or force her to drink weird concoctions. The longer Cristina remains locked away, the more she’s tormented by dark shadows and serpents, and the more the story reveals details on the events leading up to her kidnapping- Cristina struggles with addiction.
It’s not just the addition of seeing a different take on exorcism here, though the psychic surgeries offer a delightfully more gruesome departure from the norm. It’s the thematic depth added by the addiction as a possession metaphor. Director Christopher Alender and writer Marcos Gabriel merge Cristina’s personal demons with actual demons and use her to create generational and geographical contrast. She’s a savvy city girl, stuck in the middle of a remote, rural area with locals that seem to possess very antiquated lifestyles and beliefs. But true to its title, it’s those very traditions and practices that have kept the locals safe from evil for generations.
The Old Ways doesn’t entirely avoid the usual tropes, and therefore isn’t wholly effective as setting up the intended ambiguity of Cristina’s plight. That’s okay, though, because the slow trickle truth of her past, her current inner demons, and the events that led to this point are still engaging. It’s deceptively more complex than the setup initially teases. It also gives the possessed some agency in their fight against the actual demon; Cristina gets to be an active participant in her physical and metaphysical battle.
The mysticism and gorier take on exorcisms brings the horror fun and gives a refreshing new take on the subgenre.
The film’s themes of dying traditions and the generational divide add a melancholic undercurrent; Luz is the last of her kind. When so many exorcism horror movies revolve around a crisis of faith, it’s a welcome shift to center around the preservation of tradition and culture. The suburbs get traded for the jungle. It’s a slick new coat of paint, complete with animal teeth and bones, pus-filled sacs, serpents galore, and psychic surgeries that feature brujas reaching into open wounds.
source https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3682093/august-netflix-release-old-ways-gives-refreshing-mystical-update-possession-horror-indie-horror-spotlight/
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