On the 3rd Day

This film is well made, looks wonderful, and is acted well. The problem with this film that brings it to a mediocre spot is the simplistic nature of the plot. The story details a woman who after a car accident doesn't remember what happened or what happened to her son who was in the car.

The rest of the film is an effort for this woman to find her memory of her son. A police investigation is happening at the same time as this woman tries to unlock her mind with a supernatural method. But, what is uncovered is more horrifying than having to face the disappearance of her son.

Unfortunately, the rest of the plot unfolds similar to the standard ideas of this type of film. Nothing really new or inventive. But, it is crafted well.

Is a 2021 Argentine horror film. But to the one who understands. I've been watching horror movies for at least 35 years, it's rare that I don't get it like this. It's not ridiculous, huh. Meaningless. And it's also very boring. A mother and son who ran away from home get into a car accident. And then the boy suddenly disappears. His mother is trying to find him. Then a lot of meaningless events happen and it's over.

There is no sexuality and nudity in the film.

For a movie that features some big heavyweights from the Argentinian acting scene, this movie feels incredibly amateurish.

The narrative is disjointed and jumbled, and the movie is edited with no sense of cointinuity, the story (nothing new or surprising to begin with) feels like a succession of unrelated scenes.

There are plenty of random oniric-like sequences peppered with fx that look like something from a 60's B horror movie, but not in a good way.

Furthermore, there's little to no explanation for anything that the protagonists do, they just wander from one scene to the next doing things because the script demands it (minor spoiler: ten minutes into the movie and just after a quick exchange between them, the doctor decides to take his patient to... a psychic? Why was he so eager to help her, in the first place?. De-rigueur hypnotism session ensues and we have a glimpse into what the big reveal is going to be, and boy, is so cliche and trite, and done with the subtlety and technical prowess of an elementary school play).

Acting, maybe with the exception of Gerardo Romano and the two cameo-length appearances by Arturo Bonín and Rodolfo Ranni, is mediocre.

It could have been a little scary B horror movie with a 60's feel to it, but it ended up being almost like a satire.

Where do I begin?

1. A bunch of characters who seem pretty unrelated and you have no idea what they have to do with one another.

2. Either dubbing from Spanish, or a drunk audio engineer.

3. Make up your mind: is it a demon or vampire movie, or something completely different?

4. The first 90% of the film had nothing scary and no relevance.

I only gave it 5 stars because the "monster" looked good.

I'm afraid that I agree with the 2 other reviews here (at this point) I did give it a '5', which is generous, for the nice lighting and at least the EFFORT to create a good Gothic mood.

When I saw Del Toro films in the intro I was very hopeful, because Guillermo Del Toro is indeed one of my VERY favourite living directors. BUT... sadly, for some odd reason the story just did not want to gel in an effective way. The elements by themselves and especially the VERY effective mystery created from the beginning certainly seemed to promise a strong, Gothic film. But, and I'm not really sure why, it simply just did not come together in an effective way.

The visuals were very good, I really liked the lighting, the soundtrack, and even the acting was pretty decent across the board (with the one exception of the dopey policeman - I don't know WHERE the hell they dug him up) But, this is just one of those rather mysterious cases where you can't quite tell exactly what went wrong or precisely what the filmmakers did badly, since I feel taken in segments, the story seemed like it SHOULD have been very good. It's not like you can say, 'Oh, the acting is really bad', or 'The writing was poorly done', or 'The direction could have been done better' The reason is kind of uncertain as to why this didn't exactly work. The overall mood and atmosphere was created well. There was a palpable sense of Mystery right from the beginning which effectively draws the audience in, making them wonder what is going on. Even the ending was indeed surprising and not predictable at all. It SOUNDS like it should have worked, but somehow it really didn't...

The only thing I can come up with is a GUESS that perhaps just the way the story was plotted, or the pacing, or maybe the way the events were ordered. I honestly couldn't say.

I mean, the look and mood of the film was most definitely Del Toro, absolutely. But, ultimately the story just didn't work. So, I can't honestly recommend this movie despite its nice look and atmosphere. Perhaps there may be some people who are able to appreciate it more so at some level. But, like I've mentioned, to me personally, for some mysterious reason it just was not that effective.