Edelvine Ghost rise up to us…
Even if the chant isn’t familiar, the game should be. A
group of girls stand in front of a mirror in their school’s bathroom at an
exact time to summon the ghost of a girl who killed herself there years before.
It’s Bloody Mary with a twist.
The twist?
Oh, that the ghost is real.
(There’ll be spoilers after this point so hit the back
button now if you don’t want to see them.)
Séance (2021) is an ensemble movie set in an all-girls' boarding school. The action revolves around the death of one student, Kerrie (Megan Best,) after a prank during the summoning of the Edelvine Ghost. Officials label her death a suicide but the other girls that were there that night know the truth: whether they meant it or not, they succeeded in waking up the vengeful spirit of a former student who killed their friend.
At least that’s how it’s supposed to look.
Séance sets out to convince you that you’re watching
nothing more than your standard haunting and achieves that goal perfectly.
Until the reveal, even I (the person who can’t help but point out that this is
going to happen next) didn't realize that we were actually watching a teen
slasher.
Of course, it does help that the school really is haunted.
That’s where Séance excels; it blends two overused
tropes together, seamlessly creating something new and better. A haunted slasher?
Yes, please!
As the movie gets going, Camille (Suki Waterhouse) arrives
at the school to take Kerrie’s place. I love the attention to detail here
because she arrives alone – where are Mommy and Daddy? – but you don’t really
pick up on that the first time you watch Séance. Camille immediately
befriends Helina (Ella-Rae Smith,) who’s mourning Kerrie's death but is universally hated by the rest of Kerrie’s friends.
It doesn’t take long for Camille to get on their bad sides
too. The moment one walks over and haughtily demands that she leave their
table, two things happen. One, the school’s bad girls decide they want a piece
of her. Two, I fell in love with her character. She doesn’t even bat an eye
when she says, “No, I’m good here.”
That attitude.
No wonder Helina’s got the hots for her.
There’s a slow, simmering, hesitant relationship building
between them but it’s just tension until the very end of the movie. Just a tiny
taste of romance and nothing more, which fit the tone of the movie perfectly.
The tension isn’t just sexual in Séance. There’s a foreboding
score underlying the whole thing that sounds like it could have come right out
of a Fulci film (without the sexism, thank fuck) as well as flickering lights
at just the right times; figures lurking in corners; and stings in just the
right places. None of these tricks are original, perhaps, but they’re used well,
which makes them effective in creating a good feeling of suspense.
The séance itself did amuse me. The girls look up a Latin invocation
online (like you do) and use it to summon the ghost of their late friend –
which seems like a really dumb idea to me. Like, hello? Didn’t y’all just get
her killed by doing that shit?! They’re not worried, though, because it’s just
another prank.
These girls are super into their pranks.
What I like about the séance is the way they marry it with
spirit writing. Since they don’t have access to a Ouija board (who doesn’t have
one of those laying around?) they have to improvise. They grab a
notebook, pop the case off a phone and wedge a lipstick in it. Modern
solutions to modern problems, right?
The girls’ love of practical jokes becomes troublesome as they
start dying off, one by one. No one takes their concerns seriously because they assume they're playing yet another prank. Guess they should have spent a little more time
reading “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and a little less time hating on each other…
Nothing is as it seems with Séance, which is why the
reveal is so much fun. While you’re focusing on the ghost (ghosts?) you’ve got
a pair of psycho killers taking out students. Even if you do start to
suspect that there are living killers on the scene, you’re more likely to blame
newcomer Camille than the actual culprits. And she gives you good reason to.
Camille’s character is all kinds of dodgy. When she offers
Helina a weapon she tells her not to worry because she’s got other stuff. She
pockets a dead girl’s stash of drugs. She definitely can't dance, even though her transcripts say she can. There’s definitely something not right
there. It’s another brilliant fake-out in a movie full of them.
Shudder rarely disappoints with its exclusives and Séance is no exception. It delivers revamped tropes, a satisfying ending, and even a hint of romance. There are enough jump-scares to keep you on the edge of your seat and a clever storyline to hold your interest. You also get one of the best horror scores I’ve heard in some time and good, if not necessarily breath-taking, visuals.
Adding a cherry to this delicious cupcake of boarding school slasher, it's an almost entirely female cast so you don't have to put up with all the perving and shit you usually get from horror. Maybe other directors could take note? Women love horror and we're tired of the way you treat us in it. Séance is exactly how I want to see women represented in horror - the good "guys" and the bad "guys," totally taking charge and acting realistically. So... yeah, more of that, please.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Bechdel Test: 👍
