

So it's time to break out the Ouija board and get down to business, so Gloria can open a dialogue with the entity from beyond.

All the while our three paranormal investigators are proposing and exchanging theories., only to be explained away by the doubting young scientist, Pablo. As they make their way through the old antique shop, strange things are afoot, including spinning chandeliers, mysteriously moving pieces of furniture, flying objects, and flickering lights. They take potshots at each other mostly in jest, but their dialogue is crisp and snappy and keeps you engaged as they track down whatever or whoever is responsible for attacking Father Giron. Sagrario, Gloria, and Paz have a dynamic relationship that sounds very much like three women who have been working together for way too long.

A young college scientist named Pablo accompanies them and is there as a skeptic, intent on rationally disproving their unexplainable logic. Within the first few minutes of the film, director Carlos Theron has the group on the trail of an entity that has critically injured Father Pilon as he is following up on a lead of a potential poltergeist at a local antique shop. They are a celebrated group in Spanish society (like Ghostbusters but without the proton packs and jumpsuits) and have been working together for years when a particularly troubling case unfolds in 1998 that the chain-smoking, dyspeptic ghost hunters set out to solve. The women on his team include Gloria ( Toni Acosta), who is a two-pack-a-day smoker who happens to be a gifted spiritual medium, Sagrario ( Belen Rueda), a psychic and widow who is trying desperately to move on with her life despite the calls from beyond the grave from her late husband, and Paz ( Gracia Olayo), a whiz with the camera and recorder tasked with documenting the group's bizarre encounters with the dead. It stars Emilio Gutierrez Caba as Father Pilon, a priest who recruits three women to unite, each with a slightly different specialty in the field of tracking and communicating with the dead, to wage war with untold spirits and things from mysterious other planes of existence that are causing great discord for their Madrid-based clients. The premise is nothing new, but the characters are rich, complex, and completely engaged in this Spanish dark comedy based on the real-life group called the Hepta Group that investigated the unnatural. Phenomena is a brand-new release on Netflix, and we have a feeling that this story of a trio of paranormal investigators may be breaking its way into the streamer's top 10 films very soon.
