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Reviews
Diablo Rojo PTY (2019)
Some kind of movie with witches
We could say that 'Diablo Rojo PTY' is a baroque film, an audiovisual experiment that combines witches, witches who turn into demons, indigenous cannibals, Catholicism, teleportation, and the torment of the ghosts of the past.
In essence, it is a story of men harassed by witches, but the film strays almost at all times from the genre codes associated with that kind of plot. The music seems taken from an episode of Bugs Bunny, or one of the first Disney feature films. The influence of the Latin American soap opera is also noticeable, not only in the sentimental subplot, but also in the acting style, in the dialogues (although seasoned with a very realistic vulgar local language) and in the repetition of ideas and situations. The characterization of the witches is a hybrid between the 'Xena: Warrior Princess' series and a 'Kiss' or 'Mötley Crüe' show.
On the other hand, the erratic plot and sometimes slow action could be identified with some Jess Franco movies. Perhaps, a blend between Jess Franco and the telenovela 'María, la del barrio' is a quite enlightening way of defining this difficult-to-define film.
El abrazo de la serpiente (2015)
As one of those trips that mark your life.
"El abrazo de la serpiente" is a film of sublime quality, as it had not been seen in South America for a long time. And this is saying a lot, given that South America is going through a very good moment in terms of the level of its film productions.
The recreation of the historical period is perfect. We do not know exactly how things looked at that time, or how people behaved. But that does not matter. The important thing is that this movie makes you feel like you are there.
The sound design is simply beautiful and touching.
The photography is impeccable. An epic artistic work manipulating lights and shadows to strengthen the story.
The plot is solid, touching, mobilizing, and at the same time leaves the audience full of deep dilemmas.
Above all, it stands out what the actors and the director achieve in terms of performances. Every gesture, every word, every sigh of the characters has an infinite truth.
El silencio a gritos (2018)
Worst Campusano's film
854/5000
The plot is weak, obvious and superficial. The script permanently appeals to gross maneuvers to "educate" the audience, teach them such elementary things as 'abuse is wrong' or 'it is important to listen to your daughters'.
The cinematography is very poor. The DP is definitely an animal without aesthetic sensibility or attention to detail.
Camera work and color grading are also quite amateur.
The acting performance varies. Some actors are fairly good, others are pathetic.
José Campusano is a filmmaker of a certain talent, not too much, who was excessively exalted by Argentine critics fifteen years ago, and dedicated himself to repeating again and again the formula with which he had obtained that initial impact.
His films are, in general, quite mediocre. But "El silencio a gritos" is notoriously the worst.
Los días de la ballena (2019)
A naive portrait of bohemians and drug sellers
'Los días de la ballena' is one of those films that aim to provide a motivational message and help change the World, and on the way they forget to tell a good story. Or maybe the author never knew how to tell a good story and then decided to devote herself to motivational messages.
The film is full of quite artificial situations and, shortly after starting, becomes monotonous. The script forces the events to mount an implausible conflict between Art and Drug Trafficking. It should be noted that the topic of narco violence is the most effective shortcut for Colombian filmmakers who want to get some attention at international festivals.
The aesthetic aspects are not very attractive either. There is an attempt to conceptually exploit the whale through a crude and simplistic visual metaphor (totally disconnected from the film), typical of a nerdy pupil in an art course. The camera is constantly shaken in an irritating way and without any expressive justification. And the graffiti, which are supposedly a central element in the film, are not even taken advantage of in a beautiful or interesting way.
The best of the film: the performance of Christian Tappan, and Colombian popular music (traditional and modern).
World War Z (2013)
Not boring at all, but neither deep or intense
Before my review, I state that Zombie-movies fans will not like this film.
World War Z achieves success from the beginning at establishing the apocalyptic climate, and settling it's own plausibility (you believe the Zombie issue). Then you have a good Plot for making Gerry (Pitt's character) "the one" (he must protect a scientist at his trip looking for the origin of the virus). But soon the scientist gets out of the center of the scene and it becomes not very serious the fact that Gerry has to solve everything by himself (his body, his brain).
From that moment, the movie has several nice scenes of zombie hordes attacking people (you feel like in a PS3 Zombies video game; by the way, I guess they are launching it soon). But the search for answers remains the central objective, which is a plus for the film.
The PEPSI hired spot is too evident and is during the Climax sequence, which is annoying.
The solution Gerry finds to contain the Zombie invasion is smart and interesting for the Plot. Extremely sharper than the silly climax resources used in "Signs", "Transformers", "Independence Day" and "War of the Worlds"). However the last 4 minutes after that are dull.
To sum up: good colossal scenes; great main idea of the story; poor character development; no deep emotions involved (neither the audience nor the characters); the wife and mom is just a wife and mom, which remembers the Hollywood of the '40s; obvious expository dialogues; failed and contradictory political subtext; a fun story overall. And, last but not least, the 3D provides absolutely nothing to this movie, by the contrary, it's distracting. Hollywood should control his 3D fetish.
The most interesting: The comment about the "Social Engineering" solution in North Korea; the "Tenth Man method" in Israel; most of the movie happens outside the USA; the black woman zombie at the Lab; the scene where two scientists look like zombies.
Protocolo 48: El experimento final (2012)
Disgusting movie
- The script is far away lower than awful. The Army decides to use a bizarre never-tested technology (which involves killing people, putting a chip inside their brains, making them zombie soldiers) just to stop a gang of 4 (four) left-wing militants, even though they know exactly where the militants are and could arrest them or shoot them. Then the script is full of logical failures, artificial turns and obscene deus ex machina, which I won't tell to avoid spoilers. About the "Commedy": the jokes are scarce and definitely NOT funny. And this is not actually a Science Fiction film. It's just a dull action movie.
- Acting is horrible. Maybe De la Fuente used his friends as 'actors', maybe he is disastrous directing actors, maybe both.
- Action and specially fighting scenes are rustic and boring.
- Sound is extremely amateur and poor.
- Shooting, Cinematography and Edition are terrible, literally much worse than a first-year film students' short film.
- FX are just 2 or 3 ridiculous 16-bits style tricks, but that can be understood because of the lack of budget.
- Production design / Art work is the most disgusting issue. The costumes, the car of the female villain, the interior of militant's headquarters, everything is shockingly wrong.
Conclusion: Disgusting 1/10 (0/10 if it were possible)
Why are this untalented guys making feature films instead of just making web gags or something easier? This movie is absolute garbage.
La residencia (1969)
Profound, original and very interesting film with woman's desire as main topic
The characters are drafted in a sharp and catching way, something unusual in Horror flicks. They are even multifaceted, with shades and contradictions, something much rarer yet in this Genre.
The climate is also excellently defined, connecting you with the suffering of the girls but also depicting oppression and silent rebellion in a fun way.
The Suspense game with your speculation about who is the killer is well played.
The Theme, as I anticipate in this review's title, is smart and juicy.
On the other hand, the major script lacks are the absence of a precise leading character and the miss of a substantial enough construction of the issues that will define the ending. In addition, the profound human issues linked to the main theme, and the personal, intimate, conflicts of the characters, are not boarded with the intensity this adult Thriller about female behavior deserves.
The rhythm and tone in some moments are a bit slow or lack of intensity. But the acting is quite good (maybe with the exception of the boy).
Great music.
Unfortunately, most of the DVDs available, both in English and in Spanish, use as source the original Spanish version, which is censored with cuts that reduce the desire aspect and eliminate lesbianism and the subtly excessive maternal love. Anyway, cuts are not so significant and the cut version (the common one) is still a good movie.
Penumbra (2011)
It is really hard to enjoy this movie or find it interesting
As in the previous Bogliano's film -Sudor Frío-, Penumbra's Script is simply horrible. The movie is boring, and in the first 30 or 40 minutes, with the only exception of a flawless attack scene at the first minute of the movie, it seems more like a bad "artie" film in which nothing happens than a Horror/Thriller/Fantasy movie. During the entire movie the dialogs are extremely long (aaaaghhhhh, extreeeemelyyyy long!!!), expository, and unnatural. The attempt to keep mystery and reveal the plot essence gradually failed totally, obtaining a very unattractive and dull development of the events.
The acting of "Berta" Muñiz is awful and the one of Camila Bordonaba is poor too. Different is the case of Arnaldo Andre's performance, but his character is not exploited enough in the film. At this point is obvious that Bogliano believes acting is not important in Horror films.
Like in Sudor Frío, in Penumbra Bogliano underestimates and miss the erotic aspect, so appropriate at Horror Thrillers. Penumbra has a Plot linked with a Cult-like small group, the main characters are most of the time inside the same apartment, and above all it's an empty-plot bad- filmed silly movie, so some scenes of dark, nasty sex and erotic playing would have been absolutely suitable.
It's important to stress that (unlike the rest of Bogliano's works) Penumbra is not such a Horror movie, but more close to a tepid film about people settling a rent contract for an apartment.
Sudor frío (2010)
Even if you love Horror films, this one is a complete waste of time
I'm from Argentina and I'm interested in development of Horror movies in my country, so I was excited about this film. Now I've seen it, my disappointment is total.
The acting is disastrous. Bogliano seems to be so inept directing actors that he even achieved to make Marina Glezer (a talented actress) perform poorly. In addition, one of the old villains (the one with gray bear) apparently dubbed his own voice in post-production but making a voice totally unnatural, affected and contradictory with his character's personality.
The Script is pure excrement (I'm not exaggerating). The main idea of the movie (Women kidnapped with nitroglycerine over their body, in order to escape without provoking an explosion can undress, cut their hair, change position, bend, stay on foot, and even crawl upstairs, but can not walk) is totally illogical. The guy's decision to enter the house and then his persistence on staying there, instead of calling the police, are both absurd. From then on, everything that follows (literally everything) is garbage (I won't give examples because them would be sp0ilers). As an Awful-Script Bonus, there is a zombie-style ludicrous plot element, and a pathetic attempt of transmitting a message about the dark years of last Argentine Dictatorship.
The construction of characters' personality and personal conflicts is extremely poor and childish and the dialogs are surprisingly unnatural and stupid (but not even funny).
The visual aspect (frame, shots, FX, photography) is terrible. A funny detail about this is that the untalented model Camila Velasco was hired for this movie because of her sexy body (huge natural boobs, lovely lolita-like skin) but the low quality of the photography ruined her short moment of partial nudity. The sound is also poor, and the music choices are ridiculous.
It is important to clarify this is not a low-budget movie. 2.2 Million ARS is a reasonable amount of money for filming with Argentine costs a teen Horror movie with four main actors and basically just one location. Actually, what is sadly scarce here is talent and passion.
The Hills Run Red (2009)
Weak Horror, dull Gore, silly Plot. Just garbage
(No significant spoilers, actually) This movie is really, really bad. Even if you tell me the Budget was 1.5 million, It's a waste. Straight-to-DVD is the only destiny this flawless film could deserve, despite it should never have been made.
First of all: it violates one of the main principles of every decent movie (including of course Horror movies), which consist on revealing the kind of movie it is and settle the film's tone and climate at the first 5 minutes. The Hills Run Red, by the contrary, is a Horror, Slasher film, with no murders, neither violence, during the first 30 minutes! Not even any kind of intense darkness (unless you consider a short scene of a stripper using heroine is dark and intense for a Horror film of the 21th Century).
Second: the acting is awful!!! Almost annoying. The exception is Sadler (who nearly doesn't appear in the first half of the movie).
The plot is garbage. The altruistic way the stripper, Tyler's cheating girlfriend, and Tyler's traitor "friend" decide to help him with his crusade is simply ridiculous. The reaction of Tyler to the cheating and the betrayal suggests that producer's dog ate some pages of the script. Then you have some pathetic attempts to gain depth with far-fetched dialogues explaining incest and ambition issues (similar to the villain exposing his plans to the hero in cartoons), combined with revelation of artificial "pervert" behaviors linked to sadistic filming and monsters breeding.
The killings, the ways the good ones escape, and the tricks of the bad ones, are all extremely artificial (but not even filmed in a comic way: just artificial boring garbage). And the "gore" scenes are less interesting and less intense than in Hostel.
In addition, the Topic of the movie (obsession, and all the things you may sacrifice for it) is tackled in a soft, dull way. And the most interesting character, Concannon, has a too secondary role.
The positive: a little bit of nudity from Sophie Monk (strange face, lovely tits; forget about a long scene building a really sexy climate: just flawless nudity), a nice sex scene with Janet Montgomery, and a scene with a short dark moment of son-mother love (normal love, not incest).
The 5,5 IMDb users' rating is extremely generous, unfair. Even in Cinema Terror and Bloody Good Horror it gets 3/10. The 5,5 rating is obviously inflated by radical Fanatics of Slasher sub-culture. Indeed, for example, one of the reviewers who rated the film with an unbelievable 8 (eight!!!!) stated himself "t's a great movie for film geeks and horror buffs all around, and a sly poke at the gore-nography sub genre culture." Trivia: the Director, the Screenwriters and some of the actors have (before and after this movie) no career in films.