La piel fría

I didn't know what to expect from this movie when I sat down to watch it. Just before the start of the First World War, a young man (David Oakes) takes a job charting the weather on a remote island, only to discover it's not as 'uninhabited' as he first thought. Besides the location's only 'official' resident, a lighthouse keeper played by Ray Stevenson, every night the place is besieged by seemingly never-ending armies of fish people - and they're not the sweet Disney Little Mermaid kind either!

So, the two men must start a fight for their lives in order to survive not just the night, but an entire year before the next boat passes by and hopefully rescue them.

I really enjoyed this to begin with. There's a real feel for the isolation of the setting and the characters are believable in their actions - at the beginning. However, as other reviewers have pointed out, the audio is terrible in places and the conversations between the two - only - characters is almost impossible to make out. It's because of this I may well have missed out some explanations of various plot points, like why one fish person seems to be nice and Ray Stevenson is okay with her living alongside them when he simply wants to wipe the rest of them off the face of the planet.

The creature effects are good and it's nice to see not too much computer-generated effects, but the movie starts to drag in places, partly because there's only really two characters and there's not an awful lot for them to do, other than fighting off wave after wave of monsters.

By the time the film comes to an end you'll kind of have guessed how it's going to play out. There's no real shockers along the way. It's an okay sort of film that was effectively a good idea, but just kind of outstayed its welcome based on the little 'story' there was to tell here.

This film will not be for everyone (hence the disappointing low rating). For starters, it's almost an exact adaptation from the Spanish (Barcelona, Spain) award wining debut novel (translated to 37 languages) by Albert Sánchez Piñol, and directed almost perfectly by Frenchman Xavier Gens.

It is not your typical big-screen huge budget Hollywood action blockbuster with A-list actors, and thus should not be compared (as other reviews have) to The Shape of Water. Instead, it's an artistic piece shot extremely well that was written by a Spaniard and presented by a Frenchman - definitely no Hollywood here.

The directing, cinematography, landscape, vfx/sfx and score where outstanding - near perfect. The actors (never heard of either) performed exceptionally well and were very convincing.

Yes, there were some avoidable obvious plot issues, which was disappointing considering how great the rest of the production was. However I'm thinking that it was an editing issue and cutting scenes to get the length down to 108 mins, of which considering the slow pace, I'd be complaining on the length, yet it didn't feel that long. It could also be a screenplay adaptation issue from the two novice writers - they did squeeze in as much as they could from the novel, but maybe should have cut certain scenes shorter to fill in the blanks.

I've read some reviewers had questions about certain things that happened. Some of those issue are answered if you stop and think why this happened and/or dig a little deeper into the meaning. Others, you will need to read the book. I did, and have nothing to question, but do understand how others who didn't read the book would have questions.

A very impressive film, unlike any other I have seen, and needs to be appreciated for what it is, and how is was shown. Would I recommend it or see it again? Absolutely. Had better screenwriters adapted the novel, this would have been a perfect 10/10. But still is a well deserved 8.5 rounded up to a 9/10 from me.

A dark story of what colonialism might have been to the indigenous habitats of a newly discovered land. Wonderfully shot cinematography followed by brilliant musical score and unforgettable story. Very enjoyable.

Great acting.

Really novel story.

Great visuals , landscapes, music and photography - so what could go wrong?

The whole thing was obviously a morality tale about war and xenophobia and thats fine but the numerous plotholes and inconsistencies and unexplained-ness of the whole thing just made it look a bit silly and illogical.

Such a shame as it grabbed the viewer right from the beginning and had a superlative atmosphere but it became slightly tedious with the unexplained attacks (was it purely xenophobic fish people?) and the just plain weirdness of the sex scenes much like many movies try to shock these days rather than entertain and it does draw similarities with Shape Of Water but sadly it is just above average when it could have been a really great film!

As an audience we feel lonely and fragile just like the main character. The movie begins as a horror but slowly turns more action orientated. Early action scenes are very good and unfortunately the get abit repetitive and aren't as good later on. I love all the question this film poses. Set in the back drop of WW1 it does't seem to have connection intill you peice it together. As there aren't many characters in the film you get to know them intimately. Character development is handled well. The CGI looks natural and effects are gratifying. This movie had me hooked and as a result I have ordered the novel it was based upon.