Sobrenatural

Surprisingly, this is a very underrated Mexican movie from the called new generation of Mexican film makers.

The cinematography has to be the best of "Sobrenatural". It's very stylish and visually stunning that catches the viewers' attention. The suspense is very well done because there are many camera takes before "something" occurs and ends the tension of the scene. There are some scenes that make the audience jump but are justified.

The suspense of the movie relies on the forces of nature that men can't explain but exist.

Susana Zabaleta is great in the lead role. She's very sexy and can act.

Watch this underrated Mexican movie if you have the chance. There is no gore or violence but the suspense generated by the "supernatural" forces make this a watchable "ghost" movie.

7/10.

The makers of this film have confused the horror genre with one all their own; the Horrible.

I was initially very intrigued by the synopsis for this film. Witches, voodoo, Latin America, and a secret cult provided many interesting possibilities. However, one immediate preoccupation dominated the film. The director seemed engrossed with creating "inventive" camera angles. All of Them Witches/Sobrenatural is the antithesis of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in this respect, and places style above substance, which I in fact have time for when there is style in the first place. For example, the aquarium in the psychiatrist's office released a small eruption from time to time, perhaps trying to underscore the volatility of the situation, but in effect resembled underwater flatulence, such as children are wont to do in the bath after a meal of baked beans and stewed prunes.

The performances by the two lead actors was wooden, for lack of a better word, so bland that I won't even go into it.

Both Ed Wood and Roger Corman proved that even bad films can have endearing qualities. The fact that this doesn't, makes it beyond bad.

A woman begins receiving strange visions after opening a letter containing a mystical powder, and soon thereafter finds it's connected to a voodoo curse and must be stopped before it harms her and her friends.

This one wasn't really all that spectacular and turned out to be quite disappointing. Most of this is because it really doesn't do anything at all and spends a great deal of time not doing much of anything. While the concept of having bizarre visions may be horrific to those experiencing them, on film they play out so ordinarily and boring that the film appears to be so slow as to be utterly lifeless and uninteresting. Eventually it does get better towards the end when the zombified owner does get around to making an appearance and that leads to some fun in the apartment showdown being chased around by such a creepy and visually imposing presence, and the atmosphere does give off a nice suspenseful vibe, yet the fact remains that this one is just so dull and lifeless that this one really doesn't have a lot to recommend about it.

Rated R: Violence and Graphic Language

I saw this film at the 1997 Taos Talking Pictures Festival, and, for lack of any better words, it scared the hell out of me. I talked to a number of members of the packed audience afterwards, and we all agreed at how intense, psychological, engrossing, and just generally well-made this film was. The story begins when Dolores, while alone in her apartment, hears her neighbor murdered in the hall of their apartment building. The police have no suspects, and no motive for the killing is apparent. The story builds from this as Dolores becomes obsessed with solving the murder, and as her life and everything around her begin to change. The suspense builds gradually and steadily toward a terrifying climax, and the film had moments that are comparable to any suspense or horror film that I've ever seen. I would also like to complement Daniel Gruener (whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the festival in Taos) and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto on the beautiful and almost surrealistic look of the film. All I can hope for is that this film receives the U.S., or even world-wide distribution it deserves, and that it has the chance to satisfy audiences of a much larger scale in the future.

I never saw this movie with English subtitles, and my Spanish is not the best, but Telemundo ran this on Halloween a few years ago and I taped it. I would put this film in the very top tier of horror films, as gripping as Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" and Romero's "Night of the Living Dead". Director Gruener gets to the real root of the horrific; that horror is not some lunatic standing outside your door with an axe, per se, but a human reaction to trauma and isolation. He emphasises this idea by frequently contrasting the wealth of the young couple at the center of the action with the poverty, misery and superstition found in any Third World country. As the young woman decends to the verge of insanity, she finds herself more and more in contact with this gutteral, almost bestial world that all their luxury cannot protect her from. The shattered fishbowl of the opening scene is used as a metaphor(I think) for the narrow margin between these two worlds; wealth and poverty,the beautiful (Suzane Zamora is an eyeful!) and the grotesque; the sane and the mad. A great film, thoughtfully and sensitively presented!