In Benny Matthew's low budget possession film, Santeria, a young boy named Ricky Banda (Nito Perez Jr.) becomes the most popular kid in his small town when it starts to look like he's been chosen by God. The overtly religious folk who make up the population of the small town start to think that Ricky might be some sort of supernatural superstar and in a sense, they're right, but not in the way that they'd hope. They soon learn the error of their ways when strange things start to happen whenever Ricky is around and as his divine condition becomes more rigid in its manifestation, it soon becomes painfully obvious that Ricky isn't here to do the Good Lord's work at all, but is in fact a tool of the devil. Something is holding onto Ricky in ways that mortals cannot, and something very evil is preparing to launch an all out assault on Ricky and his cousin Sara (Maria Fonseca Sotolongo ) and his Aunt Letty.

Inspired by the classic supernatural films of the seventies like The Exorcist and The Omen, Santeria benefits from some great cinematography and some nice atmosphere that put it above other shot on video low budget quickies. The movie looks quite good, it is very well shot, and the lighting goes a long way to making it all look more impressive than it probably should. Unfortunately just because the movie looks really nice doesn't mean that it isn't without its flaws, and Santeria does have a few problems that you can't help but notice.

The biggest issue with the film isn't the fact that it was obviously made on a small, independent budget – after all, it's easy to look past lower production values if the story is engrossing enough or the performances are good enough. Sadly, that isn't really the case. While the kid who plays Ricky is better than you might expect him to be, a lot of the cast seem to be sleepwalking through the film without delivering much range or emotion. Given the nature of the events that do take place in the movie, that lack of emotion really sucks the life out of the scenes that should have the most impact and as a result the effects of those scenes are dulled considerably.

The other problem with the film isn't so much the story, which is fairly interesting in and of itself, but the pacing. There are a few too many long and talky stretches in the film and when the acting isn't as strong as it needs to be, long and talky stretches just don't work and things start to get dull. There are a few moments in the film where Benny Matthews manages to build some nice suspense, but getting to them gets to be a bit of a chore at times.

With all that said, for a movie made on a miniscule budget, Santeria has its moments. While maybe the very premise was a little too ambitious for what the budget would allow for, it's obvious that the filmmakers put a lot of effort into the product and took it all very seriously. Flaws or not, there are some good bits in here that do make it worth a look – just don't expect to be on the edge of your seat the entire time because there are some flat out dull spots that you need to sift through in order to find the better moments in the movie. With a bigger budget and a better cast, Santeria could have been a really good movie – here, obviously limited by those important elements, it's simply okay.

Video:

For a low budget production the non-anamorphic 1.85.1 widescreen presentation doesn't look too bad. There's some heavy shimmering in a few scenes in places where you're used to seeing it such as on clothing textures and patterns and on the grills of cars and sides of buildings but other than that the movie looks pretty good. Color reproduction isn't bad, skin tones look alright, and while there is some mild mpeg compression present in a few of the darker moments in the film, they're not overpowering.