Film per non dormire: Spettro

Spain has a long and successful tradition of horror / supernatural cinema . Who can forget the spine chilling LA CABINA , a film that does for public phone boxes what JAWS does for trips to the sea side . We've also seen the likes PANS LABYRINTH and THE OTHERS become international hits opening to great critical acclaim . We even saw Danny Boyle's sequel to 28 DAYS LATER being directed by a Spanaird which turned out to be one of my favourite horror films ever so had a lot of expectations to seeing SPECTRE tonight . Afterwards I wouldn't say I was I was disappointed just that this movie has been advertised as a horror film when it's really a morbid love story with supernatural overtones

This isn't helped by the " Films To Keep You Awake " title sequence of having an animated pool of blood where a hand appears holding a human eyeball . It's grotesque and startling and gory which is everything SPECTRE is not . Instead we get a teenage boy , Tomas , being infatuated with a much older woman called Moira along with a subtext that is anti- religion as the catholic family and friends of Tomas decide Moira is a witch

With a longer running time perhaps the subtext could have been developed more since I'm the sort of person who can't get enough secular humanism in either real life or fiction . Instead director Mateo Gil concentrates on the love story . There's nothing wrong with this of course but for long passages of the movie you forget that this has any supernatural elements and when they do fleetingly appear they feel forced . Indeed you're left with the feeling perhaps the whole film would have worked better if there were no ghostly elements at all and the film portrayed religion and the small mindness of religious followers as the villain of the piece which would have certainly have made for a better ending

After the suicide of his wife Greta (Elsa Bodem) overseas, the sixty years old Tomás (Jordi Dauder) receives a tarot card and returns to his hometown in Spain. While driving, he recalls through flashbacks his adolescence in the 60's in a primitive and superstitious village in the countryside. While studying with his friends Carlos (David Arnaiz) and Vicente (Adrián Marín), they tell rumors about Moira (Natalia Millán), the lonely newcomer that lives in a house on the hill. In accordance with the beatas of the village, the gorgeous Moira would be a witch that had encounters with the devil during the night. They decide to snoop Moira, and Tomás (Juan José Ballesta) stumbles on a root, falls and faints. When he awakes, he is in Moira's bed, and the woman treated his ankle and washed his clothes. He returns to her house and has an affair with her, and becomes obsessed by Moira. His crush becomes obsession, which associated to his jealousy and the ignorance of the locals, leads Moira to a tragedy.

The underrated "Regreso a Moira" is one of the most beautiful, sensitive, stylish, touching and engaging movies that I have recently seen. The heartbreaking story is developed in a very slow pace disclosing a powerful drama of a man haunted by the remorse of his action in his adolescence. There is no horror in the story, only a psychological drama in the head of an elderly man and trigged after the suicide of his wife. The screenplay, the direction and the performances are awesome, and I was impressed with the beauty of the unknown (in Brazil) Natalia Millán. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Chamado do Passado" ("Call from the Past")

An elderly man returns to his home town, having left the country in his youth. During the course of his homecoming, we see flashbacks to his past and learn of his love affair with a woman branded a witch by the deeply religious locals. However, all is not as it seems and his jealousy and infatuation set into action a course of events that come back to haunt him years later...

A stylish, slow-paced but unnerving ghost story that combines M.R. James-style apparitions with an emotionally-driven story and some nicely handled, subtle twists. If you're looking for a "BOO!" shock movie, look elsewhere, though: this is a thoughtful, atmospheric and emotionally-engaging exploration of the effects of guilt, with a supernatural edge. You'll need patience to fully appreciate the movie, as the story unfolds at its own pace and those looking for outright shocks will need to look elsewhere (although when the scares come, they're handled well) but if you're looking for an intelligent, haunting drama, stick with it. You won't be disappointed.

(2006) Spectre/ Películas para no dormir: Regreso a Moira (Films To Keep You Awake: Return of Moira) (In Spanish with English subtitles) HORROR

Senior Tomás (Jordi Dauder) receives a tarot card, an indication he was supposed to go back to Spain where he used to grow up at after 44 years. As he is driving back, we're then see in flashbacks what he's reminiscent back in time when Tomás was a young teenager of about 16 (Juan José Ballesta) sitting with his two friends of Carlos Martinez (David Arnaiz) and Vicente (Adrián Marín) as they are talking about the lady who lives on the house on the hill with her cat. That since her arrival that the village had been receiving nothing but droughts and animal sickness. That she struts around nude around the house, and only comes out at night.

And by the time we do get to the end, i still could not make a determination whether Moira was indeed a witch or was she something else that is poorly explained.

"Spectre" (aka "Regreso a Moira") had potential, but it wasn't fully utilized, and the movie turned out to be anything by scary. And I was really hoping for something vile, especially with this on the DVD cover: "1 of 4 movies to keep you awake". Right, I wonder what kind of low scare tolerance that person who wrote that had.

This isn't really a horror movie in the traditional sense. If you sit down to watch the movie with the hopes to be scared, like I did, then you will be sorely disappointed. This movie is a movie about obsession, but with a slight supernatural twist.

What made the movie manage to keep being interesting and watchable, despite its lack of spooks and scares, was the acting and the phenomenal switching between past and present. Director Mateo Gil really managed to keep a great flow to the storyline with his switching between past and present.

Without revealing the ending, I will say that the revealing of what Tomás saw in the house on that fateful night was really a stroke of genius and it lifted up the movie quite well.

All in all a watchable movie, just a shame that there was a lack of scares to be had.