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In “The Condemned,” filmmaker Roberto Busó-Garca frames a haunted house story in the remote Puerto Rican town of Rosales. The film follows the return of a wealthy family’s patriarch, Dr. Puttnam (Axel Anderson), to face the locals whom he duped into getting radiation treatments for cancer research decades before. The American doctor, who is dying of old age and resolved to take his secrets with him to the cemetery, is cared for by his feisty daughter, Ana. (Cristina Rodlo). Ana, on the other hand, is left to cope with the victims of her father’s experiments, both alive and dead.
One of the defining features of Spanish horror cinema’s recent resurgence has been a fatalistic attitude toward family and the supernatural. “The Devil’s Backbone,” “The Orphanage,” and “Agnosia” are all films that link their primary ghostly threat to a parent’s checkered past. The children are subjected to the harsh set of consequences that follow.
Garca faithfully follows this overused thematic link between parent and kid; in fact, he wholeheartedly embraces it. Ana arrives at her family’s mansion and begins work on building a museum devoted to her father’s medical achievements in the 1970s on the first floor. The exhibits are intended to portray Dr. Puttnam as a national hero responsible for the island’s thriving free clinic. Ana, who never truly knew her father, can scarcely hide her disdain for him.
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However, Garca and screenwriters Danielle Schleif and Luis R. Trelles cripple the film from the start, merely by depicting Ana and Dr. Puttnam. They put one of Puerto Rico’s most famous performers, Axel Anderson, in a wheelchair, blank-faced and mute. Ana tries and fails every day to awaken him. The dynamic is meant to communicate the frustration of having an unresponsive parent, but all Garca manages to demonstrate is the limits of Rodlo’s glued-on, indignant pout. We’re pleased when we see the first hints of the mansion’s vengeful ghosts, even if it’s just to see her expression change barely.
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The filmmakers also fall short in their understanding of narrative mechanics. Clara (Luz Odilia Font), a blind elderly woman revealed to be the mother of one of Dr. Puttnam’s research patients, cautions Ana about Rosales’ dark past. Soon after, the Puttnam residence starts to experience a series of “earthquakes.” Following the tremors, an unknown entity violently rips the museum’s contents from the walls and floor each night. Why? It’s never obvious whether Clara is the cause of the uproar, or if she has the power to sway the in-house apparitions.
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From the first half of the film, you’d assume the ghosts were only capable of minor vandalism and brushing up against the furniture. But, since this is a faithful genre exercise, there must be some increase of stakes, which I assume occurs. Members of the house staff die in amusing ways, while Ana is haunted by a moving display of nurses’ uniforms.
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With each new cacophony of screechy sound effects and cheap jump-scares, it becomes clear that Garcia only has two or three tactics up his sleeve. Without them, the film is just about people who are repeatedly given all of the proof they need to flee town and then refuse to leave. This tedious procedure drags on indefinitely, and I lament the wasted potential. There aren’t many films set in Puerto Rico, let alone horror films, so I’m not sure why anyone would overlook the island’s lush mix of beauty and decay for meandering shots of dark, brown corridors and basements.
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Garcia provides some short glimpses of Rosales’ crumbling apartments as Ana explores the town for clues to her father’s past, but he is unsure where to position the camera. Instead of emphasizing the intrinsic uniqueness of his surroundings, he focuses on Ana’s expression of confused fear before she returns to the mansion for more routine surprises.
Cipriano (Rene Monclova), a loyal groundskeeper, is with whom Ana learns the extent of her father’s cruelty (evidence for which is kept in the basement of the house — talk about creative use of space!). He is the film’s lone emotional link — a relic from the house’s tattered past — and it is only in his scenes that you feel the sense of tragedy and loss that the narrative so desperately wants to exploit.
However, by that point, you might be more interested in delving into the film’s real-life inspiration: the chilling, unsolved case of Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads and the experiments he was believed to have inflicted on Puerto Ricans in the 1930s. That study would almost certainly result in a shorter journey with a more vivid and satisfying sense of time and location. (and dread). “The Condemned” is nothing more than a sagging facade.
For more personality quizzes check this: Breeding Difficulty Quiz.
