After having made comedies like Los Extermineitors and Los Bañeros Más Locos Del Mundo, Carlos Galettini wanted to try his hand at horror by making a slasher film. He had the modesty to include Fabián Gianola when he had not yet become a famous TV show host. Unlike his other films, this one was made on a low budget and for home video. Although the intention is good, it is most likely that this is perhaps the worst slasher ever made.
Charly, Days of Blood starts off in an acceptable way with the deaths of a group of girls in leather. Then it goes on to introduce a group of boys who decide to spend a weekend at the farm where the murders at the beginning occurred. The reason for this is to help Charly who was traumatized by the incident with his brother that occurred on that same farm. But it seems that the farm is possessed by an evil force that is stalking Charly through his trauma and that will lead to other murders. For starters, this movie has what you would expect from a slasher. There are erotic scenes or nudity that are short, but acceptable. The first half of the movie focuses more on the young people and there is only pure suspense. It is in the last half where the murders occur and it must be said that the gore is decent. The killer's makeup is unconvincing, but the gore is at least what they knew how to do well. The story is simple and although the acting is not very good, it is just as convincing. They manage to at least respect the teenage slasher clichés and the screams are believable.
It could be a decent slasher, but what ruins that is its production. The quality of the movie is like that of a TV project or an adult movie. It ends up feeling more like a home movie. The editing is not good and there is no good use of sound effects that improve the experience. Only the demonic voice of the entity has a good sound effect. The worst thing is that, being a film that was only made for VHS, it was never remastered or retouched. It has a very poor image quality and that ruins the experience even more. If it had been remastered, the film could have improved at least in visual quality. Maybe it has something to do with the rumor that Adrián Suar wanted to eliminate all the remaining copies to eliminate any trace of the existence of this film. It could be said that it was almost a miracle that the film survived and Argentina has many productions that were not so lucky, especially during the dictatorship era.
The biggest sin of this film is that it feels like another generic slasher without originality. The entity possessing Charly to carry out its evil deeds is something that has already been seen in other slashers. Some deaths are similar to those in Friday The 13th and perhaps the most embarrassing thing is that the film's poster was copied from the poster of A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge. The resemblance is too obvious. Galettini may have wanted to make a traditional slasher with a few nods to other slashers that people could recognize, but it went wrong. The US has produced many slasher films that could be considered bad in themselves, but most of them are saved by their impeccable productions, special effects or death scenes. It is for this reason that many films of the subgenre managed to become cult films and survive thanks to their audience. Ironically, this film also has a cult status, but not for the same reasons. At least Someone Is Watching You was so far a decent Argentine slasher with more consistency and that was lucky enough to be remastered in 2024 to be admired in its full splendor. Charly, Days of Blood did not achieve the same goal and is only remembered for having been another attempt by Argentine cinema to join the slasher film trend, although it stumbled quite a bit on the wrong foot and had to be made in an era where slashers were declining. Had it been made with a better production or a few years earlier, the result would have been better.
Unfortunately, Charly, Days of Blood is a terrible slasher that does nothing but not fall into the ridiculous and is part of a time when Argentine cinema was already entering its stage of mediocrity that would mark it for life. My final rating for this film is 4/10.
