Dir. Nicholas Bain (2024)
A young woman will inherit an estate if she can abide by a set of strange rules.
Horror is full of gothic stories of ghosts and ghouls, campfire tales meant to make its audience afraid of what goes bump in the night. The downside of gothic horror is that it tends to be slower, garnering its scares from an uneasy atmosphere of ambience and uneasy feeling of dread. Sometimes this works, and when it does, it usually works pretty well, ratcheting tension by continually alerting audiences that something isn't quite right without revealing what is lurking until the final frames. When it doesn't, it's a slow burn that never simmers and never boils, an unmaterialized threat that leaves its viewers wanting more because it never delivered much in the first place. Director Nicholas Bain's new film Voice of Shadows thankfully falls much more in the former category than the latter, delivering some excellent performances and spooky setpieces that contains some good scares, as long as you're willing to wait for them.
Emma (Corrinne Mica) is visiting her aunt Milda (Jane Hammill) in her gothic estate, bringing along her boyfriend Gabriel (Guillermo Blanco), a man with a troubled past. Her aunt is old-school, by which I mean she treats Emma's Hispanic boyfriend as if he's the help, and when Milda dies and leaves her estate to the impoverished Emma, she leaves some antiquated rules that must be fulfilled in order for Emma to take ownership of the property. Strange things are afoot in the house, and the couple quickly discover that Milda was perhaps more nefarious than she was eccentric.
Voice of Shadows doesn't break any new ground, giving viewers a story that is equal parts Hereditary and The Exorcist, though to be fair coming nowhere close to matching the impact of either. It is, however, sufficiently creepy, with lots of eerie goings-on inside the house of horrors that Emma has inherited. There's a lot to take in here for fans of the gothic horror genre, from a score that works decidedly well to some first-rate performances, most noticeably from Blanco (though everyone is good in the film). The plot has a ton of depth, perhaps even too much at times, and while most of it is adequately explored, it does at time bite off a little bit more than it can chew.
Most importantly, however, it's a genuinely scary movie at times. It's rare that low-budget indie horror fan deliver the creep factor that this one does. The pacing is good enough to hold your attention despite the slow buildup, and while you likely won't be surprised with the direction it eventually takes, it does a great job of getting there without becoming too rote of a story. If you don't mind slow burn horror, this is an indie film you should definitely check out. If you're on that prefers more action-packed, slashery stories, Voice of Shadows might be a bit too slow-moving to strike your fancy. Regardless, it's a very well-made gothic horror with some great creepy elements, and it's definitely on the upper end of the indie spectrum. The ending is particularly good, and it's worth sticking around through the final act.
Who this movie is for: Indie horror fans, Gothic horror aficionados, South American Catholics
Bottom line: Voice of Shadows is better than I expected it to be. It's a much-better-than-average slow burn gothic horror that makes its budget go a long way. Great performances from Mica and Blanco and some stellar direction from Nicholas Bain craft a horror movie that genre fans will really enjoy, as long as they're not expecting too much action. It's creepy, well-made, and definitely worth a watch.
