Cristina, a journalist of Mexican origin, travels to her ancestral home in Veracruz to investigate a story of sorcery and healing. There, she is kidnapped by a group of locals who claim she’s the devil incarnated.
From the studios that captured a whole bunch of Muppets projects, “Ready or Not,” “XX,” and “Southbound,” comes a new exorcism film rooted in tribal culture. The pitch sounds impressive: an exorcism rooted not in catholic tradition but in the tribal culture from the jungles of Veracruz. Some practical effects blended into a conflicting story about a journalist returning to her roots slice together for an impressive trailer as well as some stills. Unfortunately, the film’s thin plot stretches too long and aside from a few clever technical tricks, “The Old Ways” doesn’t line up a strong narrative, instead, dragging everything out either for budget’s sake or for poor writing.
Brigitte Kali Canales plays Cristina, a journalist returning to her home village to write a story on tribal medicine. We find her captured and held hostage after visiting a forbidden cave. Luz (Julia Vera), the elderly bruja (witch), must exorcise the demon uncovered from the cave through, wait for it, the old ways. A morose jailor, Javi (Sal Lopez) accompanies Luz in her battle while Cristina’s superstitious cousin Miranda (Andrea Cortés) acts as a translator and emotional focal point.
There’s a difficulty and beauty to successfully pulling off a “one-location” horror film. By slimming down the costs on shooting locations you create room in the budget for better practical effects, well-crafted cinematography, and maybe even a CGI effect or two. This predicates that the singular location never grows stale or the director finds ways to keep the spot interesting perhaps revealing new details or adding emotional textures. In this film’s case, the jail cell (and small hut) of Cristina proves very watchable.
Admittedly, Canales’ performance recalls the more campy B budget genre films of the early aughts, but given how physical the film is, she ought to be commended for sticking it out so long. Between Javi waterboarding her with milk, getting gallons of blood sloshed all over her, and faking an entire snake being yanked out of her liver, Canales has her hands full selling the body horror at play and she sells it well. It helps that TV veteran Julia Vera makes the elder Luz mysterious, ominous, then warm and inviting over time. Buoyed by this and Sal Lopez’s dour Javi, we have an acting trio worth investing time in. What the film struggles with the most is its uneven storytelling pace.
In many ways, this film looks better on paper than in the editing room. On paper, the film’s double-finale doesn’t feel fatigued or trite and the forced character arc of Cristina might read smoother than on-screen. Unfortunately, Cristina starts off unlikable and also unlikely. A Mexican-American journalist travels deep into Veracruz without speaking a lick of Spanish? Then, as if to amend her personality with millennial overtones, her jokes about vanilla half-caf latte’s just feel forced. The film’s early reveal about Cristina, her addiction to heroin bears little on the character herself until the writer needs it to. It’s meant to cast the whole exorcism into doubt, perhaps her heroin withdrawals fuel the hallucinations she experiences but the film settles into its mythology firmly by the last half, undoing much of the heroin plot arc, to begin with. Mostly pick a lane and stick to it: mystical exorcism or drug addiction recovery?
The film feels exciting. To tell an exorcism story from a different cultural perspective shakes up the subgenre with new motifs and symbols. Even more interestingly, the story follows a former native to the tribe forced to leave her American upbringing behind her and adapt to the old ways of her former tribe. While feeling unearned and forced, the finale fully accepts that the old ways can be the best ways. As if the point wasn’t proven enough, Cristina undergoes an exorcism, this time as the bruja finishing what Luz started. It’s a tacked-on ending for a screenplay that would be a little shortchanged otherwise.
“The Old Ways” functions well but bears little mark overall. The story feels forced with characters changing direction only because “the story demands it” in a way that feels entirely fake. Brigitte Kali Canales deserves commendations for withstanding the more brutal sequences with an adept shock. Still, with a limited capacity for storytelling, the thing that shines most is a small window into another culture and feeling of “what could have been.”
Available on Video-On-Demand October 12th
