La cabina (1972)

A man gets trapped inside a telephone box and nobody is able to free him.

Director:

Antonio Mercero

Writers:

Antonio Mercero (story), José Luis Garci (screenplay)

Stars:

José Luis López Vázquez, Agustín González, Goyo Lebrero

5 wins.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
José Luis López Vázquez	...	Hombre de la cabina
Agustín González	...	Hombre segunda cabina
Goyo Lebrero	...	Jefe de bomberos
Tito García	...	Señor corpulento
Carmen Martínez Sierra	...	Señora 1ª
Carmen Luján	...	Señora 2º
María Vico
Felipe Martín Puertas	...	Trabajador 1 (as Felipe Martín Puerta)
José Montijano	...	Trabajador 2
Blaki	...	Guardia
Mariano Bardera	...	(as Mariano Barderas)
Antonio Moreno	...	Cristalero
José Miguel Aguado	...	Kid
José Manuel Hoyos	...	Kid

Storyline

A man gets trapped inside a telephone box. Onlookers unsuccessfully try to free him. Then the men from the telephone company arrive, but relief turns into puzzlement, then horror, as it transpires what they have in store for him.

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Plot Keywords:

trapped | telephone box | trapped in a phone booth | parable | twisted version of current world | 

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Genres:

Short | Drama | Horror

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Details

Country:

Spain

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

13 December 1972 (Spain)

Also Known As:

La cabina

Filming Locations:

Madrid, Spain

Company Credits

Production Co:

Televisión Española (TVE)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

35 min

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Did You Know?

Connections

Spoofed in Tipical Spanish: Españolada a la plancha (2009)

User Reviews

Classic Cult Horror Short From Spain

Horror is often associated with Gothic imagery . Think of how many classic horror films have thunder storms sweeping over bleak desolate moorland and there in the middle of the frame lies a foreboding castle . But often banal everyday objects can be used for instruments of horror . Classic DOCTOR WHO was very good at this and one of my earliest memories was watching the story Terror Of The Autons where a child's doll came alive and tried to attack the Doctor's companion Jo Grant. The Pertwee era was full of this type of imagery where the banal suddenly became dangerous . It continues today and 35 years from now middle aged people will say they are instinctively frightened to look away from statues

LA CABINA follows this type of trend . Spain has a rich history of morbid cinema and perhaps this 1972 horror short is the closest the country came to having an equivalent of DOCTOR WHO . Everyone knows what a phone box is and before everyone had a mobile phone we all used a public phone box which were dotted around cities , towns and villages. No one gave them much thought and after seeing this LA CABINA you'll never look at a phone box in the same way again as the story starts off in a everyday manner and becomes more and more terrifying as an unnamed man finds himself trapped in one

Earlier tonight I saw a documentary by Mark Gatiss where he stated Spainish horror didn't confront its fascist past until Guillermo Del Toroarrived on the scene but I disagree . You don't have to read between the lines very much to realise LA CABINA is a statement on fascism . The trapped man could be a marrano converso or a leftist or any other undesirable living in a fascist regime . It's interesting too that the man's fate takes place for the most part in public and one wonders what excuses would be offered by the witnesses ? " I didn't hear anything , I didn't see anything , I didn't know what was going on " . It's also co-written by Jose Luis Garci whose later work often used the transition from Francoism to democracy as a theme

That said if anyone watched this as I did on Channel 4 sometime in the late 1980s the political subtext would be quickly forgotten by the audience but the gloomy ,doom laden ending wouldn't . I'd even forgotten what the title and I'm glad I've found out " The Spanish film about the man trapped in the telephone box " is called LA CABINA