Content Advisory: Abuse
Paranormal events surround an elderly man with dementia in The Elderly. The world of Manuel (Zorion Eguileor) falls apart after Rosa, his wife of fifty years suddenly commits suicide. Despite the objections of his wife Lena (Irene Anula), Manuel’s son Mario (Gustavo Salmerón) decides to take in his father to live with them and Mario’s teenage daughter Naia (Paula Gallego). However, Manuel begins to exhibit strange behaviour and violent fits, while Naia begins to have ghostly dreams of her grandmother.
The Elderly is a horror film written and directed by Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González Gómez, which uses the indignities of old age as the jumping off point for a supernatural horror film. Much of the plot surrounds the conflicting opinions of protagonist Mario, who wants to care for his father Manuel as home, and his second-wife Lena, who never got along with Manuel and would rather he be admitted into a nursing home. However, the truth about Manuel’s increasingly erratic behaviour ends up being quite horrifying.
The Elderly builds its dread over the course of the film, by showing a temperature gauge that is slowly rising to a literal boiling point. While The Elderly is great in parts, such as tackling the real-life horrors of elder abuse and its surprisingly Lovecraftian climax, the film also has an over-reliance on jump scares, rather than focusing on tension. Despite its flaws, The Elderly is still a supernatural horror film worth checking out.