***Spoiler Alert***
The movie starts at the end of the story. The
police get a phone call from a young girl saying "He's here." (Although the trailer says "It's here.")
Flashback three days prior, we meet Veronica, her three younger siblings that she cares for, her bar
owner mom, and we find out her dad died. Her mom spends all of
her time at work. Veronica is the kids mother figure with lots of
responsibility for her age and no help from anyone else.
Veronica and her two younger sisters go to a
Catholic school and her baby brother is presumably in
pre-kindergarden.
It's the day of a solar eclipse and Veronica and
her two girl friends skip watching it outside instead to
perform a seance in the basement of the school. Innocently, she just wants
to talk to her dad again. The board ends up breaking and
starting on fire and Veronica becomes possessed and passes out. She wakes up
at the nurses office. We then find out she's fifteen and
hasn't had her period yet. (Lucky girl.) So yes, this is a type of
coming-of-age film too. Following the nurses office, she leaves school for the day and "Sister
Death", the blind nun takes notice of her, seemingly watching her when she leaves.
Once home Veronica tries to hide the broken Ouija
board but it jumps off the shelf. She sits down for dinner
with her siblings and can't maneuver a fork to her mouth. She
looses time and control of her body and doesn't know what happened.
We see her bathing her little brother in a
beautiful mid century modern bathroom. Yes, I'm possessed by
the blue fixtures and poodle pink tile. Simply gorgeous!
But then, she gets locked out of the bathroom and the tub
water gets scalding hot and burns his skin. She saves him just
in time.
The TV turns on by itself, lights flicker, she has
visions, sees shadows...and I should mention this is only 30
minutes into the movie!
She talks to Sister Death since she seems to see
things even though she's blind. The nun tells her the "spirit answered her call"
oh and that spirit IS NOT her dad.
Veronica tries to take things into her own hands (like she is forced to on a daily basis) and makes the Viking
symbols of protection in her siblings rooms, but the demon in her house burns them. Body shapes are burned underneath all of their
mattresses. Oddly, she didn't check her mom's mattress but then again her mom is useless
and demons don't care about her.
Her sister wakes up in the night by getting choked by Veronica? Veronica still doesn't know what's going on. This is a lot for a fifteen year old to take. She goes back to
the only person that listens to her...Sister Death and her
advice is "You have to do right what you did wrong." She went back and researched and remembered they never said goodbye after the seance. She
goes to her two girlfriends that performed the ritual with her to help her say goodbye to this demon and they are too busy partying to care. (Some friends.) Now Veronica is
really becoming unhinged.
She sets up another seance at her house with her
sisters to say goodbye and it doesn't go well. She finds out
the demon was in her all along and trying to kill her family.
She cuts her own throat and sacrifices herself to the demon. The
end.
Great acting by the kids. They are charming and
likable. The story is solid. Lots of
foreboding and creepiness. I give it four out of five black
charred demon hands.
Here's the trailer...
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