Phenomena

Watched Spain's 2023 Phenomena (1:35:06), based on real experiences by the Hepta Group, a media-celebrated, interdisciplinary research team established by Father Pilon that studies all kinds of paranormal phenomena. Its members include principal medium Gloria Palomeque, a seer and a pharmacist; Sagrario, a psychic and a widow; Paz, a video documenter and a grandmother; Gerardo Plana, a physics professor; and Pablo Marimon, Gerardo's student.

Madrid, 1998. After successfully working on a case at Vergara Palace, the team is called to investigate poltergeist phenomena at an antique shop in a theater district. Father Pilon does an initial visit, is attacked by an unseen entity, and is hospitalized. The rest of the group then go to the antique shop to work on this dangerous case.

The movie is an entertaining Halloween screening, but, because of its presentation as a horror story, tends to veer the audience away from the more spiritual aspects of mediumship, especially with many, unwarranted comic moments. Scenes seem to be overdramatized and exaggerated for cinematic purposes, making the events very hard to believe. In the end, everything boils down to the good-versus-evil formula. There are many loopholes as well, the most glaring one being how Gloria was able to enter the basement when it took Sagrario and Paz two attempts to move the heavy cabinet that blocked its entrance.

Lastly, the heavy smoking of the three, middle-aged ladies was quite disturbing, since such things are always magnified on the screen.

Quite fascinating, though, that the Spirit Questors was established in 1996, almost at the same time this group was established in Spain.