Set in rural Argentina, five teenagers celebrate graduating from school by performing an ayahuasca ritual in the woods. In the morning, Carla (Bianca Mitnik) finds her best friend Maria (Mia Cavo) dead by the water, covered in blood and marked by an unusual symbol. Ten years later, Carla (now played by Clara Kovacic) followed her dream of becoming a dancer in Buenos Aires, but she is struggling with her career and with disturbing visions of her dead friend which have been plaguing her for the past decade. While these visions are familiar to Carla, she is surprised by a different one: her friend Germán (Juan Atahualpa Albarracin) dead, hanging from the ceiling. She almost expects the call she gets from her friend Daniel (Antonio Kassab) telling her that Germán killed himself and asking her to come back to their hometown for the funeral. Wanting to put all of this behind her, Carla is initially reluctant, but she goes anyway.
Carla reconnects with Maria’s mother (Valeria Beltramo) after the wake, letting her stay in Maria’s old room, but she doesn’t want to hear about what Carla saw that day, or the fact that Germán had the same marking on him as Maria. When Carla starts having more disturbing visions, this time involving the local townspeople, Carla and Daniel understand that they were right to feel uncomfortable in their hometown, which is under the control of malevolent forces. The pair soon locate Vicente (Andrés Malakkian), their last remaining friend who lives obsessed with and paranoid about these forces, to help them figure out what’s going on as the film pushes into its intense finale.
Directed by husband-wife duo John Mathis and Emilia Cotella, The Devil Whispered My Name is primarily about the trauma of grief and the guilt that often comes from those who survived. Cotella’s script is at its most effective when we get a sense of this through Carla, her familiar traumatic memories offering gentle but effective scares as we get a glimpse into her current world. Unfortunately, this doesn’t last long as the film’s slow burn becomes lifeless. While more entertaining during the third act’s demonic activity, which includes some uncomfortable gore and striking imagery, it feel lacklustre. The mystery unfolds but offers little understanding as to what’s going on, resulting in a disconnect that wastes the genuine suspense it sometimes manages to create.
Cinematographer Samuel Watson helps to deliver the film’s effective atmosphere with its use of fog in the mountains and candlelight in houses. The Devil Whispered My Name carries dread in the emotional weight of its settings and eerie sound design, making great use of its low budget. While the other actors aren’t as strong, Kovacic’s performance of a woman struggling with grief makes the film watchable. There’s a lot missing from Carla as a character — just like the others, making it hard to get attached to them — but Kovacic brings an emotional depth to Carla that makes her more sympathetic. A stronger script that deepens the characters’ emotional journeys and strengthens the film’s supernatural lore could’ve elevated this to where it needs to be. If anything, Watson creates a memorable closing shot that almost felt worth the intermittent boredom, and the film’s atmospheric dread stayed with me long after the credits had finished rolling.
The Devil Whispered My Name is showing at Raindance Film Festival on 19th June and 22nd June in London. Click here for more information.
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