Spirit in the Blood

A half-baked thriller about a group of schoolgirls rebelling against the conservatism of uptight adults in a religiously tight-knit village community rocked by the recent case of a missing/murdered adolescent girl. The conflicts with parents and with the local pastor and the murder investigation are of marginal interest and the story instead focuses on the girls’ romping in the forest and the related emancipatory motif of finding inner strength and courage. Most of the film is therefore focused on the main character and her friends secretly playing at being amazons, trying out various ritual ceremonies just for the fun of it and whooping and setting challenges for each other to make themselves stronger. For a simple story about the dangers lurking in the forest, however, none of that is very important and the potential sources of suspense, whether fear of their parents’ reaction or an encounter with the “forest monster”, remain unused. As a result, Spirit in the Blood is unsatisfying both as a mystical thriller and as coming-of-age drama. (08/10/2024)

Teenagers finally stopped staring at their phones, instead giving vent to their emotions by screaming, tasting their own blood and pretending to be pack of predatory beasts. In a forest in which a mysterious creature roams and the corpse of their schoolmate occasionally appears. This premise sounds far better than what such a young director managed to make out of it (logically). The girls’ emotions are deeply felt and Summer H. Howell turns in a fine performance, but the motif of her character being overcome with rage after tasting the blood of a dead wild boar leads to nothing, the conflict between the pack of girls and the religious conservatism of the community lead by the local priest isn’t utilized effectively and the murders are pushed so far into the background that we forget about them over the course of the film. [Sitges FF] (07/10/2024)