The Old Ways (2020) t
Eleventh review is for a well-made Mexican brujería exorcism movie, The Old Ways. It has demonic imagery, excitement, bad ass women, style, atmosphere, ancestry, and spiritual/natural healing. Includes #spoilers :
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The Old Ways (2020) Pros: I found this the same day I watched it and woah, it was stunning in all the right ways. The plot, the way the story teased out, the use of music, sound, editing, costuming, effects, all of that! The use of a small space interspersed with flashbacks of the cave (La Boca) and further into Christina’s past. Also the cinematography was beautiful, loved that each frame had something exciting for the eye. Also, movies some times do this but it was really nice to see a sort of cyclical origin story, like self-fulfilling prophecy (The Matrix, the Scream series?, all time travel movies). The OG bruja missing an eye, and now here comes this lost woman who came to die, loses an eye in an exorcism and therefore introduces the new way from what she learned from experiencing being saved by the old way. It also built its own lore with a wall of symbols representing demons, reminds me of Thirteen Ghosts and The Conjuring, giving you a taste of what has been discovered so far. I would LOVE a sequel/prequel/triology/TV adaptation, wherever they want to go. If they leave it at this tho I’m cool because it wrapped up the story with a “This is just the beginning, The story continues” vibe and I enjoyed it.
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Cons: The very ending when the red demon was revealed I was like OH SHIT, the character design is NUTS but it shifted to more of a Charmed/Buffy The Vampire Slayer/ anything from the CW animation, serviceable but stiff/weird looking. That was a small take away though from a movie that kept giving and giving.
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I give it a solid 9.5, I enjoyed myself, it kept coming with the things I love from horror movies especially when they deal with POC and traditions. Growth, motive with actions, badass women, music I had to add to my playlist, alladat. Highly recommended.
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