Santeria: The Soul Possessed (DVD)

After receiving a phantom Eucharist, nine-year-old Ricky Banda becomes an instant celebrity in his devoutly religious community. At first it seems he has been chosen by the divine - until dark forces begin to surround him, and he appears to be under the shadow of something evil. Things take a terrifying turn when Ricky, his cousin Sara and his aunt Letty become trapped in their house, held hostage and terrorized by a phantom force, and it is clear the Devil has found a way in...

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When Santeria first started playing, I could tell right off (nothing gets by me!) that is was a very low-budget movie. When I saw that the textual explanation in the lead-off misspelled the word 'sightings', my expectations lowered.

But then the story started to draw me in, as did the visual style of the writer-director, Benny Matthews. While the cinematography is greatly hampered by the inherent home video look of the movie, the camera angles, edits and segues are top-notch. This adds quite a bit to the feeling of foreboding and horror in the film, which reminded me a little bit of The Possession of Joel Delaney (in tone; the settings and stories are quite different). The effective score also helps raise Santeria above other straight-to-disk cheapies. There are some tense horror scenes - an egg-divining ritual, and an intimate séance, in particular.

The actors are amateurs, but they do a very good job across the board — they're compelling and mostly believable, so obviously a lot of care was taken with the casting.

The special effects are pretty uneven, but when they work they are sincerely creepy and attention-getting.

Santeria does drag here and there and the ending is too rushed, but overall, especially for a movie in this class, it's worth a look.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson