The Finca

The cult-esque gore of “Midsommar” meets the suspense of “Zodiac” in this psychological thriller set in the dense jungle of Guatemala. The plot is in the capable hands of a female lead who is intelligent, has heart, and will not give up on her ambition. Pixie is a hungry, driven young journalist on the hunt for a story only she could ever possibly tell, but so far all she gets is small town scandals. Her mother sees that she wants much more from life, and, with a heavy heart, hands her the key to an old family secret that will shake Pixie’s life to its foundations. She lands in Guatemala to track down her aunt, Brida, who disappeared almost 30 years ago, somewhere in the dense jungle surrounding Flores. She comes across a journalist, Pedro, who has been tracking down mysterious disappearances of young men in the area. The men disappear, only to turn up again, killing themselves in shocking ways, before they can ever reveal where they’ve been kept for months and often years at a time. Pixie convinces Pedro to help her, by providing him the only viable lead he has ever gotten, but when they finally find the female commune Brida has built, Pixie must go alone. She has to earn the women’s trust, which is beginning to take a toll on her. At first, it all seems ethereal, grand, peaceful… but when Pedro joins her, things take a turn. He sees things that are hidden from Pixie, and has to pay for what he witnessed. Pixie is told that Pedro decided to go back home to Flores, but there are fires burning in the jungle, there is blood on white dresses, there are sounds coming from the upstairs bedroom. The ethereal surroundings turn dark, but Pixie is still caught in the web. She is buying into the cult as they showcase their humane and charitable deeds, becoming a part of it. What finally snaps her out of her drug fueled apathy is one of the cult member’s impossible pregnancy. This is when her investigative mind is finally back on track, as she pieces together the pregnancy with the timeline of Pedro’s disappearance. She mounts a daring rescue for Pedro, which nearly costs them both their lives. When they return to prosecute the cult, however, they find only memories, and a promise that Brida has not stopped and will not stop. Pixie is not Ripley… she doesn’t do the whole “badass girl with a gun” thing. She’s a professional journalist, who is driven and ambitious. That’s her downfall. She doesn’t see the forest (or jungle) for the trees and stays in the cozy nest without realizing it’s a spider’s web until it is almost too late. The cult is nebulous, it’s ambiguous. There will be arguments for both sides here, because what the cult actually does is - at its core - good. There’s no religion here, there’s no belief system. There is just a dangerous net of delusions and tightly knit sense of belonging and the knowledge that they are doing the right thing - even if it’s just in their own heads. The world The Finca inhabits is a dreamy one, shaded in green and luscious flowers. But the shadows run deep here, and under the canopy, the darkness never quite goes away. The violence here is disconcerning, yet only hinted at. There is room to go either way with regards to a rating - all out bloody slasher or shadows and hidden screams in the darkness. But at the core of it, is the feeling: What if there was something hidden in the jungle somewhere? Something that can draw you in. Something that can make you forget your morals, your home, your ideas. Something that can unmake you.