El arte de morir

Not necessarily claiming "El Arte de Morir" is a blatant rip-off, but let's see if the following plot description rings any bells... Six friends hide a terrible secret together. Four years ago, during a camping trip, they wanted to teach their obnoxious buddy Nacho a lesson, but of course it ended in a fatal accident. A new police detective has reopened Nacho's unsolved disappearance case, but while the six are being cornered by him, a ruthless killer also shows up and eliminates them one by one.

Given the plot and the release a few years after the big US slasher hit, one can only assume this is a Spanish cash-in of "I Know what you did last Summer". As a seasoned slasher lover, I personally have no problem with rip-offs, but they have to be entertaining and full of bloody violence and nudity. Now, "I know what you did Last Summer" was already not a high-flyer in the genre, and this "El Arte de Morir" is even less so, despite the fact that director Álvaro Fernández Armero tries hard to add a few unexpected and supernatural twists at the end. Without success.

The film suffers from a few things where unfortunately many slashers miss the mark. The so-called "friends" can't stand each other at all, and they make one idiotic and illogical decision after another. There is hardly any tension, the attempts to mislead the viewer are a mess, the murders are uninspired, and the acting performances are not convincing at all. Especially the male actors are weak, while the Spanish beauties Maria Esteve and Lucia Jimenez still portray decent and believable characters.

Nice Spanish Thriller(supernatural)/Drama that's definitely worth watching,nice rental!!

It's your typical "Kill them one by one" movie (like Scream) where a bunch of young adults did something wrong in the past and have to pay for that now...

This is NOT a horror/Comedy,it breaths a dark,chilling atmosphere... It's very well directed,kind of strange and has good music(New Wave/Gothic).

Ideal to watch once on tv or for an overnight rental.

GO SEE THIS,YOU'LL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED!!

See ya!

This film turned out to be an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours in front of the boob tube. The film succeeds due to the entertaining ensemble cast and the great to watch acting of Fele Martinez. Man, I love this guy. He seems to make every film he's in. The films that I have seen him in I greatly enjoy. He seems to me sort of like a Spanish version of Ewan Mcgregor, maybe even better. He's very versatile and fun to watch (Lovers of the Artic Circle, Open Your Eyes, Talk To Her). For him I give the movie a 7. Without him it's a six.

I have to admit that when I decided to see this movie I was completely sure it was going to be another "Scream" clone. Despite that, since it was the first Spanish horror movie that belonged to this new "horror-movie-for-teenagers" genre, I though it might be interesting to watch.

How little could I imagine that it was going to be much more intelligent and scary than any "I know what you did last summer" type of movie(It also has some flaws,though, but I'll take about them at the end). The plot seems rather similar to that of the movie I've just mentioned, but only at the beginning, because afterwards it has amazing plot twists that don't just focus on the identity of the killer. (Even though the final plot twist isn't good enough)

The way it's directed helps the movie be different too, making the movie kind of "cold" and distant. To be honest, I think the director has got inspired by films such as Crash and Gattaca to set this kind of mood.

The performances are good, specially the main two characters, even though sometimes they behave strangely. (They seem to be a bit unfocused sometimes, but maybe that's the way their characters are supposed to be)

As for the bad things, the movie gets a bit boring towards the end, not because of what happens, but because of the performances and the direction (I know, I'm contradicting myself a little bit here, since I've said all of this was good, but maybe the director should have made things go faster at the end and make the character's personalities not so monotonous.) Then, when you thing it's over, there are two more plot twists that instead of getting better and better get worse and worse, and make the ending less interesting.

Overall, "El arte the morir" is a GOOD movie BRILLIANTLY directed and with fairly good CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. And it's much more intelligent than Scream2 and "I know what you did last summer" and its sequel. I give it a 7.5 out of 10.

This movie was 1hr 42m of my life that I will never get back. It is singularly the most boring movie I have ever seen. The only suspense involved in watching this is the sensation that any time now, something is going to happen. Unfortunately, nothing ever does. The ending was wholly predictable. I can't think of a single redeeming quality for this flop of a film. It has zero substance. Every death in the film comes as expected. Watching fungus grow on the side of a dead tree in real time is more thrilling than this movie. Retirees eating soft foods give a greater sense of danger. To sum up, this movie was terrible.