36 pasos

A group of luckless hotties must follow a set of rules at the behest of a mysterious individual while holed up in a big house after being invited to a birthday party. Failure to adhere to the rules of the house will result in discipline. Failure to have fun will result in punishment. Failure to obey the whistle will not make the homeowners happy.

Now, any reader can be forgiven for thinking that this sounds like your standard, generic ho-hum horror set up but trust me, you'd be wrong and very pleasantly surprised as this isn't quite like any horror film you've ever seen before or ever will see.

I gotta say, I was completely blown away by 36 Pasos. Supposedly shot on a minuscule budget of $5000 it easily transcends its shoestring funding, and via clever use of rewind, animation, flashbacks and an honest to God choreographed Mtv-style dance number- that actually works all the better for the film as a whole- it emerges as one of the quirkiest, offbeat and highly original gems I've ever seen and has become one of my new favorite horrors of the 00s. I'm not gonna give any spoilers regarding plot as it's actually a helluva lot more effective if viewed "blind", with no prior spoilers. Reason being, as well as being highly original, it also comes with a refreshing and very effective sense of unpredictability that makes for captivating viewing as you're really not sure what to expect next or how things will develop amongst the housemates.

I really cannot say enough nice things about 36 Pasos. I watched it purely on impulse one night and it surpassed my expectations in spades. The director Adrian Bogliano is IMO an innovative creative genius who gets the absolute most out of his micro budgets. His slasher Rooms for Tourists also easily transcended its shoestring budget and made for absorbing viewing and his vicious rape revenge film No Morira Sola, while also being probably shot for about the price of a plane ticket is a brutally effective and genuinely gritty throwback flick to those nasty 70s, as opposed to some self aware homage.

I advise horror fans to keep an out for this guy as he's criminally underseen and underrated and his output is worth the time of any self respecting horror fan.

Anyway 9/10 for 36 Pasos, a brilliantly innovative, shoestring budgeted treat, a far superior horror than many of its much larger budgeted counterparts and one of the best horrors I've seen in years. See it now, it's a waiting to be discovered gem.

I only watched this because it was linked to I'll Never Die Alone (2008) but was I wrong to watch this little stinker. Before you stop reading my review, it do offer a lot but you have to sit throughout a rather boring flick.

And by boring I mean, I cant say what i just saw. There's so much going on and I can't get out of it. Then you have girls dancing for 3 minutes in their bikinis and suddenly a door opens and one girl is smashed in the face with a hammer. Then you have a lot of blah blah between the girls. Then you got a part that the girls are shown in a cartoon. Then there is a part that all girls are full frontal in strobo light. You get it I think, this is weird.

But there are a few gory moments to catch but overall I had the fast forward always in hand to skip parts. Not for everyone, only for the lovers of gore on a low base.

Gore 2,5/5 Nudity 2/5 Effects 2/5 Story 1/5 Comedy 0/5

A gaggle of bikini-clad uber-hotties are preparing for a birthday party, but they're in for a blood-soaked nightmare instead.

36 PASOS is an absolutely crazy movie with a disturbing story about abduction, torture, revenge, and murder. The disjointed, disorienting filming style adds to the overall berserk goings-on. It's like being caught in a whirlwind!

Not for everyone. May require repeat viewings...

... but it definitely feels like a marathon for you, while you're watching it. But let me put it clearer, because my analogy isn't that easy to follow. You have a low budget movie here, that succeeds to undermine your expectations. With a script that must have been put loosely together, a misogynistic central theme and "acting" that does not deserve to be named that way, there is very little to get excited about here.

Even if you are into slasher movies, the pacing, the story and most of all the completely annoying characters (or their portrayal by the actors) will leave you with a bitter taste. From start until way after the movie has ended ... But even a movie like this seems to have it's followers, as I can see by some voting and comments here. And while I do admit that I'm stunned by that fact, I still respect their views. But not the ones stating that there is good acting in the movie and even less the statements giving the movie another dimension, by just making up reasons why the filmmaker did this movie.

This is not a philosophical movie and even the ending, which picks up pace, comes too late to save anything. Yes this is low-budget, yes there are a few good looking women in bikinis ... but if it's the latter your after, you're better off with a nice magazine!

No way... I just saw this movie on the Fantasy Film Fest and I am still wondering what this is supposed to be. I have to grant the makers that they planted a truckload of strange ideas in this low budget movie that looks like being shot on Betacam. If you are looking for a gory horror movie I doubt this is the right one for you. The basic story reminds ofRuss Meyer meets Reality-Survive-Gameshow meets Art-house meets sick TCMretard family. For most of the time you see some nice Latina girls in Bikinis in a house with pool having fun. You get girls swimming, girls sunbathing and girls dancing like in a video clip. A lot of this is pretty over the top in bright flashy colors and with an overuse of loud music and aggressive sound effects. Right when you think you are in the wrong movie it is revealed that the girls are rather forced to have so much fun because they play a strange game with rules that if not followed have the girls getting their head bashed by a funny psycho with a strange hat and even stranger smile or tortured in the toolshed. This sound like a load of other movies but believe me, you get something different. Not just the synchronized dance scene... you get some flashbacks to how the girls got to the "house of fun" which are shown in very different fashion and have a strong art-house meets trash meets telenovela style to them. One girl dies and her life is told in a backward flash, the other girls story of abduction is showing them in strange punk-rock or art performances. And as if this mixing with the bikini girls dancing and bathing is not enough you even get some very strange Elements that remind of David Lynch and an animated dream sequence. I honestly didn't know what all this was supposed to mean until after a little bloodbath and bikini girl decimation by chainsaw, nailgun, hammer to the head and knifing as well as a pretty funny decapitation scene the whole thing is revealed in a strange finale. Even though my total confusion was cleared up a bit I still think a lot in this movie didn't make much sense and many sequences were stretched way too long (especially the uninteresting dialog and the final escape scene). The mix of at least a million elements with some humor, some gore, some experimental stuff and the girls talking and bathing is just too much and if someone really calls this a horror movie I wonder what drugs he is on. This movie is only for horror fans in a way that Necromantik2 was for horror fans. The key scenes are nothing compared to the parts of the movie that rather seem like a trashy art-house movie with a Russ Meyer vibe. There sure is some interesting elements in this movie but as a whole it was rather a mess to me. For sure if you are into very strange and low budget movies you can give this a try.