‘Nocebo’ Review: She Cooks, She Cleans, She Wreaks Supernatural Vengeance

Dennis Harvey
·4 min read
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There are two ways domestic service can go in horror movies: Either the innocent worker is walking into a diabolical trap, or she (it’s almost always a woman) is in fact the smiling angel of death, bringing doom to privileged employers who are oblivious of peril until it’s too late. In Nikyatu Jusu’s “Nanny,” which reaches theaters later this month, we get Scenario No. 1. In Lorcan Finnegan’s new “Nocebo,” about another immigrant laborer hired into a wealthy household, it is No. 2.

Similarly offering somewhat upscale genre fare, this first-ever co-production between Ireland and the Philippines is a diverting if not entirely successful mix of sociopolitical commentary with psychological and supernatural suspense elements, stronger in the realms of directorial style and performance than writing. RLJE Films opens the feature on 115 U.S. screens this Friday, with release to digital and VOD platforms Nov. 22, then niche streamer Shudder’s various territories later on.

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Finnegan and scenarist Garret Shanley collaborated on two prior features, the folk-horror-ish “Without Name” and vaguely sci-fi, “Twilight Zone”-y “Vivarium.” Both were more cryptic than “Nocebo” (named after the negative antonym of a “placebo effect”) turns out, though this narrative’s eventually rather blunt explanations are withheld until the final reel.

Christine (Eva Green) and Felix (Mark Strong) are busy, distracted parents who barely seem to have time for raising approximately 8-year-old daughter Roberta, nickname “Bobs” (Billie Gadson). He’s a marketing strategist, she’s a fashion designer premiering a new line of children’s clothing. But during that moderately glitzy runway event, she gets a disturbing phone call (whose precise message we don’t glean until much later), and experiences an inexplicable, threatening vision. Eight months later, she’s still a basket case, plagued by physical pains, anxiety attacks and memory lapses.

Thus she is not particularly put out by the arrival of Diana (Chai Fonacier), a petite Filipina who claims to have been hired “to help,” though Christine has no recollection of seeking such assistance. Nonetheless, she needs it, and indeed Diana proves an expert housekeeper as well as a very good cook. Never mind that she’s a bit creepily invasive at times … let alone that she’s got a suitcase full of talismanic objects in her room, and sneaks unknown substances into the family’s food.

Bobs, initially resentful of this live-in stranger, is eventually won over. But Felix remains skeptical of Diana, setting up a conflict between them — and between himself and his wife, who quickly becomes heavily dependent on the newcomer. She’s not sure she believes Diana’s fantastical backstory of witnessing a faith healer’s death as a child, thus inheriting the witchy woman’s soul, knowledge and uncanny capabilities. But she is a fervent convert to Diana’s methods, which greatly relieve her own mental and physical ails, at least in the short term.

At first, those herbal remedies and such seem harmless, even to Felix. But he suspects this mystery woman is some kind of usurper even before we realize she’s infiltrated the household on a mission of grim, very personal vengeance.

While Finnegan and Shanley’s prior features were offbeat fantasy premises less driven by story than atmospheric detail, “Nocebo” is comparatively plotty. It arguably packs too much into the flashbacks of Diana’s life in the Philippines, which encompass a litany of injustices too hurriedly sketched to have maximum impact. In the primary present-tense sequences (which were shot with Dublin subbing for London), the script doesn’t quite lend Christine and Felix dimensionality enough to pull off their being both sympathetic victims and stereotypical western exploiters.

That renders the shifts between each mode unconvincing and abrupt, despite the stars’ best efforts. Green is a magnetic performer more persuasive when her character is confidently-in-charge than when vulnerable (let alone hysterical), and Strong doesn’t get a lot to work with in Felix’s limited screentime. But both have sufficient charisma to keep us engaged.

Filipina TV, film and pop star Fonacier fares better, deftly underplaying a role that might’ve been as outlandishly sinister as Mrs. Baylock in “The Omen.” And young Gadson is solid as an oft-disappointed child with good reasons for acting like a petulant brat. Smaller support roles are well cast.

“Nocebo” carries a final-credits acknowledgement of the 2015 chemical fire at a Metro Manila rubber-shoe factory that killed 74 people. Its indictment of such cheap, often hazardous offshore labor benefitting rich, remote capitalists — this tale ultimately hinges on a sweatshop disaster linking both adult female figures — may be a bit heavy-handed. Yet Finnegan juggles the script’s disparate elements with some aplomb, making for a sleek whole that’s entertaining if not particularly depthed or plausible.

The film has a handsome look thanks to astute design contributions (a consistent factor for these filmmakers), with heightened color vibrancy in the Philippines scenes. Jose Antonio C. Buencamino’s original score, which incorporates some gamelan elements, is another asset.

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