Not everyone likes this movie, but I think it gets a lot of things right, somehow. I don't think I completely understand why or how, but I'm going to just say what my thoughts are.

If you don't instantly remember what it is... it's that 80's Santeria run amok in NYC movie, with Martin Sheen, Helen Shaver, and Jimmy Smits. And Robert Loggia! Quite a cast, really.

Apparently it's not exactly a Santeria movie. It's about some very dark, evil form of witchcraft that has some common ground with Santeria, but is different. Just from Googling around, I get the sense that a lot of people of Caribbean and/or Latino heritage really disliked the movie because it portrayed Santeria negatively. I'm not sure what to think about that... I know that people's feelings about these things are real, and just because I personally don't understand what the hell kind of problem people have with the movie, doesn't mean that people might not have a legitimate gripe. So, I'm sorry if i pisses anyone off that I like the movie. I'm not making any kind of political statement in liking it, I just think it's a pretty effective scary movie in some ways.

Right at the beginning, there's a really scary scene where a woman gets electrocuted. Yeesh. And, relatedly (I think), there are several scenes throughout the movie where we see a kid's little 80's plastic toy robots getting turned on, and making their funny little noises and moving around. There is also at least one scene in a thunderstorm. I think these things are supposed to make us think about electricity, a force that most of us don't exactly understand, but which is present in our lives at all times, whether as a force for good or for evil. I think the director probably wanted us to feel like ths supernatural world is sort of like electricity in that way. It is around us all the time, and it can be harnessed in some ways, but it can really fuck you up bad if you don't treat it appropriately. I don't know, that's just how I interpret the electicity stuff in the movie.

There are also a LOT of scenes that involve food preparation, in kitchens and in restaurants. I am having a harder time stating clearly exactly what they intended by including so many of these scenes. Maybe it's the idea that we are constantly taking different life forms into our bodies? Like, to draw a parallel with being possessed, and making possession seem less outlandish, and similar to things we do and experience every day?? There are scenes where people go into a sort of trance, and I think they are supposed to be possessed.

What else could the food preparation scenes mean.... I feel like they must mean something. Maybe to bring up the idea that we are all part of a web of life, or a chain of being, and that there are other lifeforms below us that we know of... just to raise the possibility that there could be other lifeforms ABOVE us, tthat we don't ordinarily percieve but which could exert power over us if they chose? I bet I'm close here, even if that's not exactly right.

Jimmy Smits had a really cool part, I thought. He played an NYC cop with some kind of Caribbean heritage, and he knew right at the beginning that there was some seriously awful shit going down. The look on his face when he was crying "they know who I am... do you want them to know who you are?" really gives me the willies. He was supposed to basically be an American guy, but maybe he had lived in Cuba or somewhere as a child, and had been exposed to some freaky Santeria-ish cultural stuff that was still in his mind.

Anyway, I coud probably say more about this.... Helen Shaver was a babe, for one thing. Anybody have any thoughts on this movie??