PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Dark Star Pictures’ The Elderly, AKA Viejos, is a Spanish psychological horror film directed by Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González Gómez (read our interview with him HERE), whose sci fi horror debut, The Passenger, premiered at Sitges Film Festival 2021. The script was written by Cerezo, Javier Trigales (El Semblante 2019), and Rubén Sánchez Trigos (La Luz 2021) with a cast that includes Zorion Eguileor (The Platform 2019), Gustavo Salmerón (Lots of Kids, A Monkey and A Castle 2017), Paula Gallego (Vis a Vis: La Oasis TV series), Irene Anula (Lucas 2021), Juan Acedo (El Vestido 2022), and Ángela Gamonal (Poquita Fe 2022).
Synopsis:
Following the sudden suicide of his wife, Manuel begins acting violently strange. Soon a series of paranormal events has all of the local elderly behaving oddly. They all seem to know something the young do not – paired with a lust for blood.
In a runtime of only 95 minutes, The Elderly manages to build an unsettling, sinister atmosphere where the idea of growing old comes with horrifying circumstances. For their children, watching the person they’ve loved and trust slowly deteriorate before their eyes, even becoming violent, is a hard thing to wrap their brains around. They love their parents and want to take care of them like they were cared for when they were little, and they can’t believe that their parent has become a totally different person almost overnight. How do you look them in the eye and tell them you don’t trust them anymore?
It may be clearer for their spouse who doesn’t see the world through those nostalgic, rose-colored glasses, but the ultimatum of “It’s me or them” is a tough one to lay down. It’s a two-fold horror for their children’s children, who hate to see their beloved grandparent, sometimes the only one who understand them, break down, while at the same time reminding them that their own soft skin and shiny hair will someday fade away, leaving them in a decrepit body with a mind that everyone dismisses because they’re younger and they think they know better.
This is where The Elderly sinks its hooks into your brain… these horrors are real. These things really happen. You can’t escape growing older and being forgotten. Well, the alternative is not one I would suggest, anyway. Add to that a supernatural element, and you’ve got yourself a truly terrifying film.
Remember that feeling you had when you realized the old neighbors in Rosemary’s Baby ***SPOILER*** were the ones behind her demon rape and pregnancy? Now imagine they’re all dangerously losing touch with reality, and that’s what you get with the old folks in The Elderly. They seem innocuous, people you could knock over with a feather… but imagine punching an old lady in the face to stop her from coming after you with a knife. It’s not as easy as you would think.
Then you’ve got the voices or sounds that the old people say they hear. Is there really anything there? Or is it mass hysteria? And why is it something only affecting people over a certain age? Could the octogenarian in the apartment across the hall really be talking to someone—or something—when they start mumbling to themselves in the hallway at 2am? And when they tell you that, at night when no one is looking, their face spins around and falls off their skull onto the floor? Maybe they’re not just demented.
It’s not all just mumbling old people in The Elderly. There’s also some pretty cool practical FX during the radio transmitter scene. I was squirming in my seat, imagining something that big going where Manuel (Eguileor) was trying to stuff it. And there’s also the heat wave. Madrid is experiencing the hottest heat wave on record, getting up to over 110 degrees, making everyone all the more frustrated and angry. Everyone is already on edge, especially pregnant Lena (Anula), who also hasn’t had a cigarette in months since she found out she was expecting. She’s hot, hormonal, and cranky, and she can’t understand why her husband, Mario (Salmerón), and her stepdaughter, Naia (Gallego), can’t seem to see the danger they’re all in. This old man needs to go! The tension leaks off the screen and infects you as you watch. You can’t help but be affected.
The cinematography and lighting from Ignacio Aguilar are like characters unto themselves. The harsh yellows and sunburnt browns of the film radiate heat, constantly reminding you that it’s there, breathing down on the back of your neck like an open oven door. The shot of the nursing home hallway is absolutely stunning, and the skies are more troubled than the ones in Sin City. This is one of my favorite aspects of them film.
If you’re looking for an uncomfortable walk through what may be your future along with some mysterious signals, then this film is for you. The Elderly will premiere on October 13th in a very limited theater run and on VOD and Blu-ray on October 31, 2023. If you get the chance to see it, make sure you take it. Highly recommended.
