El cuerpo

This Spanish Mystery/thriller/Noir film from Oriol Paulo and starring Belen Rueda(Julia's eyes, the Orphanage) had me on the edge of my seat until the very end. What's starts out as a mystery concerning the disappearance of a corpse from the morgue soon turns into a game of cat and mouse as nothing is what it seems and not even the dead can be trusted. Pure dread oozes through the entire film and by the end you are left with the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end and your blood running COLD.

If you watched films on the beach instead of reading books this would fill the bucket nicely. In a style of a vengeful Inspector Columbo it will keep you juggling the outcomes right to the very end, as the sands begin to fade so to speak.

Congratulations to Spanish cinema by presenting us with yet another thriller / mystery spectacular without showing explicit sex, as we have seen in some Spanish films. The movie is great! The way that every thriller should be: it leaves you lost, but arrives somewhere. And this place is beyond the obvious. The atmosphere of suspense and tension remains, and we are honored by the environment's main plot: nothing less than a morgue! The unwinding of the film is fantastic, amazing and high quality. The Spanish film hardly disappoints me. This one does not disappoint at any time. We watch unblinking eyes and is surprised as the quality of the excellent climate of suspense. The final part is amazing, leaves us with an open mouth and makes us wonder as was thought up this great script. Without blinking my grade is 10! Never has a movie surprised me as much as this in recent years.

Thanks again Spanish cinema!

Mystery , intrigue about bizarre facts happen in a morgue .The same team - actress (Belen Rueda) , producer (Mikel Lejarza , Mar Targarona) , screenwriter (Oriol Paulo) , cameraman (Oscar Faura)- who made ¨The orphanage¨ and ¨The Julia's eyes¨ bring us another suspenseful film , ¨ The body¨ or ¨El Cuerpo¨ . The picture is thrilling and some moment brilliant , and the actors are quite reliable as Jose Coronado and Hugo Silva . And again a wonderful Belen Rueda as a nasty woman in a movie with intense sequences of tension and suspense . It deals with a veteran detective called Jaime Peña (Jose Coronado) searches for the body of a femme fatale (Belen Rueda is sensational in one of her best films along with ¨El Orfanato¨) which has gone missing from a morgue . As main suspect there appears her husband Alex Ulloa (Hugo Silva) . Alex is detained and finding alone in the morgue , he is terrorized by strange events , surrounded by corpses and then weird deeds take place .

The film contains tension , thriller , drama , mystery , plot twists and shocks , including decent scares with tense sequences especially in its final part , in a unexpected denouement , near of the end . Hitchcock-style psychological thriller , being surprisingly good and compellingly realized . The original as well as entertaining idea is overspread throughout the movie , but not totally satisfactory , including conventional pitfalls . The main cast is frankly fine , such as José Coronado as Inspector Jaime Peña who bears a dark past , Hugo Silva as upsetting Álex Ulloa , Belén Rueda as Mayka Villaverde , a selfish and domineering woman and the young lover Aura Garrido as Carla . The motion picture is pretty well , although sometimes stagy and packs excessive turns ; however is entertaining for continuous suspense . Sinister and mysterious atmosphere plenty of lights and shades , it is finely photographed by cameraman Oscar Faura . Suspenseful and stirring musical score by Sergio Moure who previously composed successful films as ¨Unconscious¨ and being expert on frightening atmosphere such as ¨Thesis on a Homicide" and ¨Kidnapped¨ .

The film was well produced by various producers , such as Joaquin Padro , Mar Targarona and Mercedes Gamero ; all of them have produced a lot of successes in the new Spanish cinema . Being professionally written and directed by Oriol Paulo who formerly realized only short movies and wrote ¨The Julia's eyes¨ . The movie will appeal to suspense enthusiasts and Belen Rueda fans . Rating : Good , better than average . It's well worth watching and contains some really thrilling scenes and disturbing images .

This is how you have to do a movie like this. It's a ride from beginning to end and it will keep you guessing throughout. Maybe you'll get things right and see the signs, maybe you're just enjoying things unraveling as the movie flows by. Whatever the case, you can be more than entertained with this little gem.

The acting is top notch and the script is really clever (I try to use this term as lightly as possible) and there is a touch of coolness to the characters, that is not forced upon them. The story might seem bigger at the beginning that it finally turns out to be, and there might be people disappointed with the ending. Take a chance though ... or wait for the inevitable US remake ...