Gory and effective even if it is a bit too dark for my tastes
A mother restrains her daughter in her bed, although both seem calm. A knock at the door sees three priests arrive – not expected but seeming to know where they are and whose house they are in. Placating the mother, they begin to survey the situation as odd demonic figures start to lurk at the edges of this reality – but they will not lurk there for long.
This Spanish short film is pretty much all about one thing – horror, and horror of the gore variety rather than the chiller variety. The setup is good as it mixes The Exorcist lore with the cool anti-heroes of modern films to produce a hybrid film which is both familiar but yet feels fresh enough to stand out a little. From here the film is very much about building up the horror with creatures under the bed gradually becoming a possession which changes everything and will see the motives and aims of the trio becoming clearer. All of this was fine and, even though I am not a fan of gore, I did enjoy how effective the special effects were (all make-up and models it appeared to me). There is an earthy, grungy horrid realism to all of it and in particular the image near the end of the film of two hands "birthing" into our world will stay with me for a while.
The downside of this grunge is that I personally found it a bit too grim to fully enjoy. So, to be specific, the scene where the girl is beaten with a lamp; I get the idea and I liked the use of the lamp to flash light to allow the impressive transformation to occur, but it does start out with a man brutally beating a restrained girl and I found that hard to watch and hard to shake off the tone that scene gave the film. This is the point though because it is a horror and it is not meant to be a PG-13 experience, but that very brutal edge put me off a little. For horror fans unaffected by such things I suspect this will play very well because it is grungy and engaging. It ends in a way suggesting that a feature film is the hope but, much to my pleasure, it stands as a contained short film too – not just a pitch.
This Spanish short film is pretty much all about one thing – horror, and horror of the gore variety rather than the chiller variety. The setup is good as it mixes The Exorcist lore with the cool anti-heroes of modern films to produce a hybrid film which is both familiar but yet feels fresh enough to stand out a little. From here the film is very much about building up the horror with creatures under the bed gradually becoming a possession which changes everything and will see the motives and aims of the trio becoming clearer. All of this was fine and, even though I am not a fan of gore, I did enjoy how effective the special effects were (all make-up and models it appeared to me). There is an earthy, grungy horrid realism to all of it and in particular the image near the end of the film of two hands "birthing" into our world will stay with me for a while.
The downside of this grunge is that I personally found it a bit too grim to fully enjoy. So, to be specific, the scene where the girl is beaten with a lamp; I get the idea and I liked the use of the lamp to flash light to allow the impressive transformation to occur, but it does start out with a man brutally beating a restrained girl and I found that hard to watch and hard to shake off the tone that scene gave the film. This is the point though because it is a horror and it is not meant to be a PG-13 experience, but that very brutal edge put me off a little. For horror fans unaffected by such things I suspect this will play very well because it is grungy and engaging. It ends in a way suggesting that a feature film is the hope but, much to my pleasure, it stands as a contained short film too – not just a pitch.
- bob the moo
- Apr 29, 2014