So, I watched Para Elisa. It is by no means a complex movie, but I was having trouble figuring out how to condense the plot into an easy line or two. Onto imdb.com! They say:
Para Elisa is a terrifying story based on a simple, innocent children's game. Something that looks naive and harmless turns into the worst nightmare, into the struggle to escape a tragic and expected end, into an explicit and inevitable horror.
What?
My synopsis: College student Ana gets into some serious trouble when she goes for a nannying interview - she gets drugged and tied up by some old lady. The lady makes her a "living doll" of sorts, for her clearly deranged adult daughter Elisa.
Elaborate Genre: Kidnapping Thriller
Overall: Nothing much to see here. It's brief, at least.
Despite what the synopsis says, Para Elisa is not based on any children's game that I know of. Anyone ever play "kidnap and drug" when you were a kid? It's pretty straight forward plot - after killing 10-15 minutes with some meaningless business about her life at college, And heads to an interview for a nannying job. It goes okay, until she is given something that makes her woozy and unable to speak. She is then tied up and presented as a gift to the daughter Elisa. Both Elisa and her mom clearly have problems - but the idea here is that Elisa needs a new toy to play with - unfortunately for Ana, *she* is that new toy! Which pretty much means Elisa pretends to be her mom, feeding her, disciplining her, and doing all the stuff that an abused/deranged/crazy person would do in a horror movie.
While it's disturbing in concept, it's never overly gory or anything. I think the most troubling aspect of the film is seeing 30-something Elisa behaving and being treated like a little girl. There's something inherently creepy/gross about that, but it's not enough to carry a film. The most vicious scene is pretty much lifted directly from Stephen King's Misery, and it's probably the best thing you'll find here. Much of Para Elisa stays away from ever overtly showing the audience anything too gross - you just sort of have to infer what's going on based on sound and the character's reactions. But it really only works in this one scene - there are other times where you just have to guess what's going on because the film just refuses to show you what's happening.
Eventually, Ana tries to escape from the apartment. That's pretty much it. There's a side-plot where Ana's boyfriend tries to track her down, but it doesn't amount to much. It really only seems to exist to fill out the short runtime. I guess at the end of the day it's a reasonably well shot film - it looks slick and the apartment has a creepy look to it. But when the story is a big whiff, I guess the way it looks can only take you so far. And the ending sucks.
The most memorable thing about the film? There's an obnoxious amount of screaming. It's just a couple of scenes, but it goes on *forever.* If you're watching late at night, have your finger on the volume control, because it's the sort of screeching that is just aggravating. Or better yet, don't watch it at all.
I would not recommend this film.
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