EMERGO/ APARTMENT 143

Spain, 2012, 80 minutes, Colour.
Kai Lennox, Gia Mantegna, Fiona Glascott, Michael O’Keefe?, Rick Gonzalez.
Directed by Carles Torrens.

Emergo is a variation on the Paranormal Activity movies. And is superior.
The film has Spanish imagination, looking at the American driver. Writer-director is Carlos ex and the writer-director is Rodrigo Cortes, who made both Buried and Red Lights, both psychological dramas with touches of horror.
The film has an American setting, an apartment in a city where a family has taken up residence but has found disturbing experiences. They call in a group of qualified experts who bring their equipment, set up cameras and recordings, taking photos of each detail of the house in order to discover whether it is haunted, whether there is a ghost, or if there is poltergeist activity. While there are manifestations of each of these, the group under the leadership of its professor, Michael O’Keefe?, decides that the explanation is psychological.
There is a strong performance from X as the father, seeming normal, breaking down and finally expressing great angers, especially against his dead wife. Teenage daughter is sullen, but manifests strange experiences which the professor considers schizophrenic. There is little boy but eventually he is taken away by his grandfather.
Not a long film, using handheld camera as well as material from the cameras placed around the house and different rooms, the genre of found material edited together. Better than expected.

1. A Spanish film? The Spanish and American cast? The American setting? International interest?
2. The title, the work of the company, the ghost, poltergeists? The more prosaic title for America, Apartment 143?
3. Horror, haunting, poltergeists? The Spanish imagination?
4. The popularity of the Paranormal Activity series? This film as a variation? Including more detail of the human story? The company and its attempts to analyze what was happening, to remedy the situation?
5. The squad arriving, the introduction to them in the car, handheld cameras? Talking to camera? Cameras observing everything? Establishing their characters?
6. Arriving at the apartment, the corridor, the apartment setting, the elaborate setting up of all the cameras? The technical equipment?
7. The father, his welcome, the young boy, teenage daughter? The family set up, the history? The father talking to camera, the interview? His age, job, letting go of his job, his wife and her illness, her death, the family upset, the decision to move, the troubles in the apartment?
8. The young boy, friendly with the crew, the explanations of the equipment? His age, seeing his mother, talking to her? Ordinary sequences? The meals? His grandfather’s arriving, taking him away?
9. Caitlin, her age, spiteful attitude towards her father? Memories her mother? Locking herself in her room, sleeping in her room, wanting privacy? The eerie experience and her interpreting it as against her father?
10. The squad, the technical skills, photographing, setting up cameras, observing, discussing, the details of their work?
11. The days, the meals? The notes and the experiences? The photos, capturing eerie images?
12. Caitlin, in her room, the schizophrenia, her levitating?
13. The professor and his reaction to the father, taking a stance against him, the father being knocked about when he went into Caitlin’s room to intervene?
14. The doctor, his science, suspicions, wanting facts, saying there were no ghosts, the explanation of poltergeists, the psychological explanation?
15. Pressing the father, the questions, the father getting more agitated, his description of his wife, the animosity, calling her a whore? Increasing anger and desperation? His psychological condition and the house?
16. The psychic, the possibility of communication, being a medium, channeling and its effect?
17. The experience, for the family, for the house? For the squad, the injuries to the professor?
18. The picture upside down, the final image of the ghost? Explanations, but beyond explanation?