La Cabra attempts to recreate the experience of watching a ‘70’s Satanic Panic cult film with its story of a little girl (Coral Degraves) who has strange encounters while wandering alone in the woods. Given the fact that the title literally translates to “The Goat” you can bet that both Satanism and the aforementioned hoofed creatures feature prominently in this film. I can see what writer/director Toruga was going for here, trying to build tension and dread through an ominous soundscape and scenes of an innocent child punctuated by sinister imagery, but the end result just doesn’t translate to a successful horror film.

Degraves does a perfectly fine job for someone of her age attempting the difficult task of carrying almost the entirety of the runtime on her back alone and the issue isn’t with her as much as it is with the pacing and direction. Even at under 15 minutes, the lack of meaningful onscreen interaction causes this to drag and it could have been a more engaging slow-burn at half the length (starting a short with a full credits roll out doesn’t help either). Shooting horror in broad daylight on a shoestring budget is no easy feat but even with those limitations in place this could still have made a larger impact with more creative camera use, minimizing the screen time of costumed characters, and excising cliched imagery of things like Ouija boards entirely. The sound design is the most effective part of the experience but it’s not enough to make up for the rest of the shortcomings.

Availability: Widely Available

The full film is available on Toruga’s YouTube channel.