History of the Occult

Wha?...

This movie is very rich, but in my opinion too short! It feels like if someone tried to trim Pulp Fiction down to 45 minutes.

The other reviews make it seem like there is no action, but there are scenes with movement, and vehicles... the whole swirl of events is fast, pretty deliriously so. At the end you feel like everything just blew by.

But I will think on it more, I feel like there is more to get. Therefore I would say it is worth a watch.

But more for a night when you would enjoy a play--intriguing characters played by a cast that acts continuously very well. Black and white seemed a challenge for me here, but it gives a Twilight Zone feel mixed with a vaporwave dream essence of news and commercials: hard to tell what year this takes place!

"History of the occult" is almost a cosmic political horror, an intriguing story that plays with several figures of speech wrapped in a plot of growing tension, mysticism and strangeness. The direction always seeks to disorient the viewer, but in a positive way, in order to cause an instigating curiosity. With a black and white photograph with few colored details, the feature's aesthetic is one of the points that draw attention, as it speaks to its script, everything is very simple but always very detailed, with light, shadow and three-dimensional effects to cause fear. And tension, many rules are pre-established and a narrative set becomes linear with an occurrence of facts that follows a path, but even so we are lost about the outcome of the work and its subtexts. The performances of "History of the Occult" are good for a low-budget film, the ramifications of its script are great and its horror construction too, in fact, the film scares, not in a silly and fleeting way, we were really amazed by its subtleties . 8/10 grade.

Spanish horror film "History of the Occult" (2020) is a film full of mystery and understatement, which with its atmosphere intrigues and frustrates the viewer at the same time. The plot centers on the TV show "60 Minutes to Midnight", the last episode of which is supposed to reveal the biggest conspiracy of a certain sect. The program's creators have gathered a wealth of information and "dirt" on the mysterious organization, and their goal is to interview its guru.

The film unfolds on three parallel narrative paths. The first is a live interview, the second involves a group of program employees who seem to know more than they are willing to reveal, and the third involves a woman on an outside mission to reach the recording studio. Unfortunately, neither of these paths provides clear answers. The mystery of the cult remains undiscovered, and the viewer is thrown into a vortex of strange, unexplained events that only add to the feeling of confusion.

The film's biggest problem is its incoherence. The story seems to be a conglomeration of loose threads that lead to a goal, but never defines what that goal actually is. The mystery around which the atmosphere is built is never fully explained - just like the audience in a movie show, we, watching *History of the Occult*, are left in limbo. And if you're hoping for a satisfying ending, you may be disappointed - the filmmakers leave it completely open-ended, forcing the viewer to make his own interpretation.

Is it a horror film that scares? Rather not. More than frightening, it evokes feelings of unease and makes you think. It has a few moments that can be considered scary, but they are not typical jumpscares. Rather, it's a film about atmosphere, analysis and the search for hidden meanings that are difficult to read clearly.

The visual layer is also noteworthy - the film is almost entirely in black and white, except for a few scenes in which the color red appears. Why exactly red? That is not known. This treatment is somewhat reminiscent of *Sin City*, but in the case of *History of the Occult* it does not seem to have a clear justification.

All in all, this is a horror film that is more thought-provoking than actually frightening. It is mysterious, incomprehensible and full of puzzles that we have to search for the solution ourselves. If you like movies that force you to analyze and interpret, you might like it. However, if you are looking for a more classic horror film in which the plot leads to a definite punchline, you may feel disappointed.

Atmospheric, mysterious, somber, oblique, apocalyptic. Goes needlessly off the rails a bit when hallucinogens are introduced in that always-disappointing way which has the filmmaker apparently thinking that gas lighting the viewer into wondering what is real and what is a hallucination is somehow entertaining or clever. It's similar to movies in which something creepy or startling happens but, oh gee, it was just a dream. These tactics are ineffective cliches and almost always bring a movie down a notch or two in my book. Despite these shortcomings this is a pretty cool movie with an impactful inclusion. It does come down to literally the last 30 seconds, in which we see that a stylistic element that had been introduced earlier in the film as seemingly a mere stylistic element is actually part of the story.

Side note: I have to wonder whether the name of one of the antagonists being Belasco is a nod to The Legend of Hell House, the Richard Matheson novel, and if a reference to Beaumont Street is a nod to Charles Beaumont, who wrote some of the best Twilight Zone episodes. This movie does have a very Twilight Zoney feel to it so maybe it's not a coincidence.

...and we liked that a lot!

Great acting, you really feel like you're watching an old TV broadcast, and the people outside that do transmit an old way of acting on movies of that era.

Good atmosphere, wasn't expecting it to look so old but relatable at the same time.

Of course, the end is a bit frustrating, but it is part of the movie, so it is somehow expected to end that way.

Hope to watch more of this director soon.