Summary
“The Devil Dances before Easter” at least has a hopeful message, but it’s another ridiculous story of generic haunting.
This recap of Haunted: Latin America episode 5, “The Devil Dances before Easter”, contains spoilers.
Blessedly, Haunted: Latin America comes to an end with its fifth episode, “The Devil Dances Before Easter”. In the process it raises the stakes a little, involving the Devil itself rather than a run-of-the-mill ghost, and manages to build to a hopeful ending with its subject, Emmanuel Cifuentes, resolving to fight against evil under the tutelage of his gypsy grandmother. But it’s also as ridiculous as ever, making far too much use of the show’s obviously mediocre visual effects, so it’s a mixed bag as far as finales go.
Emmanuel’s mistake was going out over Easter, which I suppose is topical. Good Friday is when, apparently, the Devil goes out dancing, so presumably, Emmanuel’s granny had good reason to insist he didn’t go outside — an instruction he betrayed, obviously, which brought him face-to-face with the Devil.
As ever, there’s every chance that this is all just an outgrowth of Emmanuel’s parents separating and him going to live with his obviously eccentric grandmother, a gypsy descended from the Romani people who would teach him Divination and all kinds of rituals and conduct exorcisms in the house. Despite these rituals, she also diligently observed Catholic tradition, so Good Friday was a time for cleaning the house top to bottom and making sure nobody left it. You can’t go out on Good Friday — the energies are far too dense. Just thought you should know.
Of course, Emmanuel went out anyway, and after a lonely jaunt through the neighborhood found himself being pursued by a giant dog, which he naturally theorized was the Devil itself and not, you know, a big dog. He ran home to granny’s house just in time to make it inside, and she springs into action, stripping him off, giving him some white pajamas, and carrying out a quick ritual.
Haunted: Latin America episode 5 turns dour the next morning, as Emmanuel wakes to find his pajamas a soiled, damp grey, the smell of something rotten all throughout the house, and walls bleeding yellow slime full of maggots. Things get steadily worse for him as he gets sick, has visions, develops random scratches, and imagines a snarling dog under his bed.
Eventually, grandma tells Emmanuel’s father that he’s deathly ill, and his dad — who the episode is devoted to, by the way — understandably believes the trauma of the separation is causing all this. He promptly sees one of his visions, though, and that changes his mind. In the aftermath, Emmanuel begins to get involved in the “esoteric subjects”, learning under his grandmother, which comes in useful when an attempted church purification only intensifies his experiences. Since then they apparently haven’t stopped, but he has kept quiet about them since he feels if he pays too much attention to the events then the evil will win, which seems a likely excuse.
These days, Emmanuel feels he has a responsibility to do good and fight against evil and continues to train under his grandmother. He should try “sit” and “heel” next time.
