31 Days of Halloween: Don't Listen (Voces)

2020, Ángel Gómez Hernández (Behind) -- Netflix

Another year, another first time director who comes from a background filled with acclaimed horror shorts. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against it, I just find it interesting, like a venue has been created that generates horror film directors.

Am I tired of the "ghost hunting" sub-genre? Maybe. When I found out this movie was going to have EVP (electronic voice phenomena) I was not at all enthused. But the movie diverges from the idea quickly enough that I was not annoyed. Daniel (Rodolpho Sancho, The Valdemar Legacy) and Sara (Belén Fabra, Zoo) have bought another fixer-upper house in relatively rural Spain, doing the common enough idea of fixing and flipping. Son Eric must be having issues with the latest move, as they have a therapist coming in to talk to him. Eric talks about the voices, the voices that tell him things he is not supposed to share. Along with the voices, Eric's room seems to also have flies, flies coming from a rather nasty rotting crack in a main floor wall, that nobody seems all that concerned with. But one of those flies goes along with the therapist for her drive home, crawls into her ear and she dies in a car crash. Eric draws the car crash; the flies/voices must be his muse.

And then Eric dies. Said voices must have not just been manipulating him into horrible drawings, but also had him drown himself in the fenced off swimming pool? Parents are devastated; Mom goes to stay with her parents for a short time, and Dad is just going to hang around the house immersed in his grief. Until HE hears the voices coming from the walkie-talkie. And enter into the mix a paranormal investigator who specializes in EVP.

Sure, the do the usual setup where the investigator fills the house with cameras, both normal and infrared, as well as mics & speakers. We don't play any "is it real or imagined" games, as almost immediately the investigator sees shapes on the cameras, and know something is up with the house. A little research connects the house to the Spanish Inquisition (whom nobody expected) and tortured and burned witches. Ah HAH, they must have been REAL witches.

So yeah, evil is doing as evil does. Dead witches are never truly dead, and the flies are her conduit to influencing the living, along with ... well, walkie talkies I guess. Not sure why the EVP but sure, its creepy sounds along with brain washing flies and visions of things not really there.

The tension and creepiness factor was all solidly done, as well as the production values and acting. But the story was a little lacking refinement. Once you reveal that there is a thing responsible for it all, it sort of just takes time for it to play out. Defeat the witch, kill the flies, or just burn the whole fucking house down. Either way should work.

But then Hernández did something neither of us were expecting. After all is said and done, and Dad is the only one left alive of his family (Mom had an unfortunate run in with a noose and a fly) and the investigator and his daughter are safe. Then Dad finds all the drawings done by Eric, that he just never seemed to notice before, including one that shows Dad drowning his own son. Fuck, what? Yup, Eric the poor kid hearing voices never did kill himself. Dad did, by way of fly influence. And that is all just the final straw. Boom goes the shotgun.

Fuuuuck.