Coisa Ruim: Portugal Does Horror

By Julie Finley

Coisa Ruim (a.k.a. Bad Blood) is a Portuguese supernatural drama. It’s not Brazilian-Portuguese, but an actual Portuguese film. I make note of that because there are very few Portuguese films to actually make it to DVD, especially in the horror genre. That’s the only reason I stumbled upon it; it was one of the only Portuguese films I could find!

I was preparing for my trip to Lisbon earlier this year, and surprisingly found that Portugal has very limited options when it comes to cinema (although this does not seem to have always been the case). Most of the films they watch there are in English, with Portuguese subtitles, or made in Brazil. Despite an almost non-existent film scene and thus having no competition, Coisa Ruim was actually a pretty good film! Horror films aren’t even popular with the Portuguese audience, but this film did quite well overall with its native audience.

I also have to note that although the film is called Bad Blood in English, since there has been more than one film with that title, I’ll refer to it as Coisa Ruim throughout this review.

The artwork on the box under the title of Bad Blood is absolutely off the mark! There are no evil little girls in this film, so the company needs to do a redesign. The original Coisa Ruim artwork is much better. It evokes eeriness, but it’s not totally obvious what the film is about. The term “Coisa Ruim” roughly translates to “Bad Thing,” but it is also one of many terms that means “Devil” in Portuguese, so if you’re thinking this is a film about devil possession, you’d be on the right track.

The story revolves around an affluent Lisbon family whose patriarch inherits a house in the countryside. Instead of trying to sell the house, the father moves the entire family there. They are all reluctant, as they quite like it in Lisbon. The wife is the only one who’s willing to give it a chance, but the kids—two boys and a girl—aren’t happy. The oldest son is in college, so he stays behind in Lisbon to finish up his semester. The daughter is a middle child, and its not divulged how old she is, but she also an unwed mother with a newborn (the father is never revealed but there are some hints). Then there is the youngest son who’s probably about 11 years old at the most. He’s kind of hyperactive and doesn’t like to pay attention to anyone (which turns out to be ironic later on).

The family moves into their new community, but isn’t welcomed by the locals: there is lots of small-minded/small-town bullshit . . . that kind of thing. The daughter tries to acclimate, only to get dirty looks from the locals because she’s young and unwed (and the locals are strict Catholics). The mother starts to get paranoid due to the isolation and seeks out religious guidance (also because the new house doesn’t seem quite “right” to her).

She takes up with a younger priest who’s simultaneously going through some sort of exorcism training with an older priest (I mention them because they are prominent characters in the film). The father is oblivious and ignores the fact that his family is unhappy, because he thinks he’s right and giving his family what he feels is “best.” The family also hires a maid who is older, Catholic, and extremely superstitious! She’s very distant and cold, but seems to be on edge at all times (lots of praying and paranoia, but she seems to know something that no one else does). Oh, and the youngest son. . . suddenly sees dead people! (This is not a Sixth Sense rip-off, either!)

He doesn’t really seem to be scared of the dead people at first and actually kinda likes them, but he’s cautious. Things don’t really get too crazy until the oldest son shows up when his semester ends. At first he seems ambivalent to the new home, but it doesn’t take long for him to start acting odd. The first glimpse of how odd is when there is an unprovoked fight he has with the sister, and he grabs her inappropriately. We see her crying alone later on, which alludes to a possible incestuous relationship. That is pretty much the turning point of the film, where you really start to feel uneasy about it. Before that, it was mostly character and scene development, but once you digest all of that, it starts to pick up (and in ways you don’t really see coming).

Coisa Ruim is stark and slowly suspenseful. I won’t give away the entire plot in this review, just what to expect with some of the characters. The foreshadowing is subtle and more atmospheric than anything scary. It’s slow moving, but not in a way where you get bored with it and the character development makes you wonder where it’s going.

So on that note, I can’t really say it’s a horror film, but it’s definitely psychologically creepy. Coisa Ruim is worth watching since it’s an independent foreign film that isn’t run-of-the-mill. It holds its own, and definitely doesn’t lack in plot twists! I’d recommend a viewing mainly because of the fact that Portugal isn’t a prolific country for filmmaking, plus Coisa Ruim is not what it appears to be on the surface.

Coisa Ruim was released in 2006 and is available on DVD from Tartan/Palisades Films. If you want to learn more about Portuguese horror films, check out The Lisbon International Horror Festival, MOTELx, which takes places from September 29 – October 3.