Sobrenatural

Strange and violent things happen in an old house in central Mexico City which shock Dolores, an attractive young housewife and her husband Andres, a tender, loving and ambitious businessman. Following the murder of the couple's friend and neighbour Eva Maria, Dolores undergoes a transformation which effects the people around her. Even Andre's progressively quieter and more retiring behaviour worries her. She decides to visit a psychiatrist, Dr Riojas, for therapeutic help. Dolores discovers a letter in Eva Maria's apartment which contains a mysterious powder and a business card belonging to a healer, Madame Endor. She visits the mysterious Madame Endor who reveals to Dolores a profusion of witchcraft and idolatory rituals. She is horrified to discover that her friend has been involved in witchcraft and that things are not what they should be with Andres. Dr Riojas' steadfast psychiatrical theories slowly fall to pieces. Bewildered by Dolores' state of mind, which is fraught with danger, the psychiatrist visits Madame Endor. Despite this, the more and more threatening shadows begin to pull Dolores into a spiral of hallucinatory madness. Dr Riojas desperately tries to rescue her before it is too late, but it is hopeless when nothing is as it seems. Dolores is walking, or rather fumbling, the same way as a number of other cinematic women have fumbled, among them Sissy Spacek, Catherine Deneuve, Linda Blair, Mia Farrow. Few of them survived... Dolores is in good company anyway, and in Sobrenaturalshe is accompanied by some of the horror genre's more sophisticated characteristics. The Italian giallo at best has here found a Hispanic variation. The camerawork and imagery has all the ingredients of Dario Argento - and with Luc Besson's Leon, which the opening of the film is reminiscent of. As with Argento, we see here a profusion of symbols, many incomprehensible in their Catholic mysticism, but still completely effective.Incidentally, it is often Catholic filmmakers who make the best horror films; the above mentioned Argento, De Palma, Polanski - who receives a tribute here and, of course, Alfred Hitchcock. Debut director Daniel Gruener need not be ashamed in this company. J L