Stream It Or Skip It: ‘My Encounter With Evil’ On Netflix, A Mexican Docuseries About Three Women Who Endured Tussles With Demons

There’s a reason why The Exorcist was one of the most popular movies of the 1970s; there are still lots of people who believe demonic possession is a thing, and for the ones that don’t, it’s still fun to see people levitating out of bed and vomiting split pea soup. But to hear real-life accounts of possession is a whole other matter. A new Netflix docuseries from Mexico talks to three women who were either possessed by or otherwise dealt with demons in their lives.

MY ENCOUNTER WITH EVIL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A closeup of a woman saying, “There is a war between good and evil.”

The Gist: My Encounter With Evil is a four-part docuseries that examines how three women endured demonic possession and how their friends and family managed to eradicate demons that inhabited their loved ones.

Utilizing interviews with the victims, real video of exorcisms and extensive dramatic reenactments, the three women and their families talk about their possession. The women’s stories are threaded throughout the series, as we go back and forth between them.

We hear Jessica Urbina’s story through both her and her mother Sully, who is both a forensic psychologist and a big reader of tarot and other mysticisms. Jessy’s childhood was tough, as Sully raised her as a single mother, and she was a lonely kid without a lot of friends. She had seen people in mirrors even as a young child in elementary school, and when Jessy was a teenager, she became fully possessed.

Andrea Viridiana Rostro Olvera and her sister, Esther Aguilera Olvera, talk about the possession experience of their mother Concepción, who back in the ’70s would see the sisters’ dolls light up with red eyes. After being visited by a demon, her brother, a local priest, told her that the demon had visited him before moving on to her.

Florencia Macías, her daughters and her boyfriend Pablo move into an apartment, with the full intention of the two of them having a child of their own. But Florencia soon starts seeing a girl in the hallways of the apartment, and then her daughter Emma starts sleepwalking and pointing at the same girl Florencia sees. She soon gets pregnant, but the horrors are just beginning.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Let’s just say that these three incidents could have easily been three episodes of Evil and leave it at that.

Our Take: Your enjoyment of My Encounter With Evil (original title: Mi Encuentro con El Mal) really depends on how you view the topic of possession. If you’re a skeptic like we are — we asked ourselves while watching, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, why it seems that only Catholics get possessed, for instance — you are going to be throwing this series some heavy side eye. It’s taking these people’s claims of possession far too seriously, despite the fact that there are psychological roots in all of the behaviors these supposedly possessed people exhibit.

Yes, the filmmakers do have psychologists and psychiatrists on to explain how they see these phenomena, but those interviews are short and don’t speak to the specific things that these people claim to see or do. Yet, the people who are interviewed are more or less true believers, buying completely into the fact that themselves or their loved one is chock full of demons instead of, you know, exhibiting severe mental illness that needs to be treated.

The format is a bit muddied; instead of taking each woman’s case and devoting an entire episode to it, the cases are threaded throughout the series. The first episode takes time to introduce us to each of the three women and their loved ones. But the last ten minutes has us careening back and forth from Jessy to Coni to Florencia, and things start to feel chaotic.

Perhaps that’s the idea, that the viewer is supposed to feel as uneasy as the subjects and their relatives. It’s also the idea that these cases are supposed to be scary, seeing the actors who are playing these possessed women scream like animals and attack people, or bend in strange ways when the demon has a hold of them. We even see people levitate. But it all feels silly to us, and the fact that these stories are played so seriously makes a show that’s less scary than it thinks it is even less so.

Sex and Skin: We see the actors playing Florencia and Pablo having sex, under covers, when a sleepwalking Emma walks in on them.

Parting Shot: After seeing a reenactment of Jessy bending backwards and screaming, we see Sully, in her interview, say, “OK, Jessica has been possessed.”

Sleeper Star: We like the real Florencia, maybe because she seems a bit more practical and down to earth than some of the other people interviewed. She also has braces, and we always find adults wearing braces on their teeth endearing.

Most Pilot-y Line: As much as we hate dramatic reenactments in docuseries, the extensive ones shown here, complete with dialogue, make sense. Dramatizing the accounts not only gives the show a needed visual element but also allows the witnesses’ accounts to play out exactly as they describe. It doesn’t mean that they’re not overwrought at times.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Unless you’re super into demons and possession, My Encounter With Evil will probably not have the intended impact on you, mainly because it doesn’t treat its topic with enough skepticism to have any sort of legitimacy.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.