Oh disappointment, oh rue. La casa de las siete tumbas works through at least half of its run time on curiously intense sloppy weirdness but then it takes the plunge. Suddenly things go from merely garbled to full on nonsensical and it just isn't as fun, in fact it rather bores. I was reminded of Inland Empire actually, probably one of the greatest examples of a film that abandons traditional narrative partway into the run time, but where that film had marvellous performances and alternately beautiful and unsettling imagery, this film gets ever decreasing returns from various combinations and riffs on what has gone before, seeding the mix with meagre character insight until the whole thing solidifies (up to a point) in a fairly predictable if somewhat touching climax. I'm a huge fan of cinema as a medium for exploring the fractured mind, the ways in which sound and image can trace the cracks, can show us reality break and fall away and I so wanted to get into this film, but boredom is just to much of a turn-off, not to mention the fact that the story at work before the film goes haywire is actually pretty interesting. Two lovely girls have grown up differently, one paranoid, reclusive and prone to strange reflection, one more carefree and outgoing. The former remains at home while the latter sets out on a trip with her boyfriend, but begins to have eerie premonitions when the happy couple are waylaid at a strange old house whose occupants may include a witch and possibly have a thing for murdering guests. I could happily have gone all the way with this, offbeat characters (the boyfriend doesn't really care about being locked in a room by strangers) and creepy scattershot scare tactics (Dolls! Dark horseman! Cat abuse!) but it was not to be. There is some interest in the Lynchian hodge podge of the films latter half, cannibalism, retarded girl acting like a pig, baffling dialogue etc., but the symbolism is too obscure to be especially effective and while there is a feel of the breakdown of reality it comes across more as writer and director pulling ideas out of a hat than a properly thought out explanation. It may be one of those that rewards repeated viewings but I'd have to really get into the mood to test out that idea and it appears that this one is hard to find on any decent quality release which hurts its replay value as well. Maybe it'll get a release on remastered DVD, Mondo Macabro or someone like that, and I'll have to rethink my thoughts but for now I can't recommend this one. Not really worth a look for anyone except serious geeks I'd say, but I guess if you have to see it you could still do worse.
5 Reviews
Too obtuse
Leofwine_draca29 March 2022
A very strange and surrealist Argentine psychological horror film about a girl who's gone out of her mind due to a traumatic childhood experience. It's set in one of those sprawling country estates where minor chit chat is interspersed with bizarre imagery including animal abuse, murder, and assorted weirdness. A bit too obtuse for my tastes, unfortunately.
Pedro Stocki is no Polanski.
BA_Harrison28 November 2021
When they were children, Clara (Soledad Silveyra) was the outgoing one while her friend Cecilia (Cecilia Cenci) was more reserved; as adults, the roles have reversed, with Cecilia full of life, and Clara now a nervous recluse. When Cecilia goes on a trip with her boyfriend Armando (Miguel Ángel Solá), Clara is left all alone and her sanity (or what's left of it) unravels. Meanwhile, Cecilia and Armando take refuge at a strange house after their car has a flat tyre.
I can only assume that The House of the Seven Tombs is intended to be Argentina's answer to Roman Polanski's Repulsion, with everything that happens to Cecilia and Armando being a figment of Clara's increasingly fragile mind, originally damaged by a harrowing childhood experience in a creepy barn; it's the only way I can explain the abject weirdness of the movie, which is head-scratchingly surreal and impossible to fathom for most of the running time. There's all manner of strangeness involving a dovecote, cat burning, a well, some graves, skulls, a screeching bird that sounds like someone screaming 'Help!', and a drooling mentally disabled girl who likes to wallow in the mud with her pigs, all of which is not only very confusing, but also incredibly dull.
As Cecilia and Armando contend with the bizarre goings-on at the country house (which are most likely only happening in Clara's head), Clara is spending her time chucking out her missing husband's clothes, stabbing her wedding photos with a pair of scissors, and trapping a couple of people in her apartment.
Needless to say, director Pedro Stocki is no Polanski and Silveyra is no Deneuve, and even if you're a big fan of psychological horror, there's a good chance that this particular film will have you checking your watch at regular intervals to see how much time is left.
I can only assume that The House of the Seven Tombs is intended to be Argentina's answer to Roman Polanski's Repulsion, with everything that happens to Cecilia and Armando being a figment of Clara's increasingly fragile mind, originally damaged by a harrowing childhood experience in a creepy barn; it's the only way I can explain the abject weirdness of the movie, which is head-scratchingly surreal and impossible to fathom for most of the running time. There's all manner of strangeness involving a dovecote, cat burning, a well, some graves, skulls, a screeching bird that sounds like someone screaming 'Help!', and a drooling mentally disabled girl who likes to wallow in the mud with her pigs, all of which is not only very confusing, but also incredibly dull.
As Cecilia and Armando contend with the bizarre goings-on at the country house (which are most likely only happening in Clara's head), Clara is spending her time chucking out her missing husband's clothes, stabbing her wedding photos with a pair of scissors, and trapping a couple of people in her apartment.
Needless to say, director Pedro Stocki is no Polanski and Silveyra is no Deneuve, and even if you're a big fan of psychological horror, there's a good chance that this particular film will have you checking your watch at regular intervals to see how much time is left.
Gloomy thriller with some creepy visuals.
HumanoidOfFlesh29 August 2010
Two childhood friends have grown up and evolved differently regarding how they approach their fears.The mystery has its roots in their childhood fears.Debut director from Argentina Pedro Stocki uses this unsettling premise to construct his film and adds to it an old widow who hates cats,a mentally disabled girl and her love of pigs,a man whose behavior is truly strange and a disgusting pig eating scene.The plot is nonsensical and often plays like a bad dream.The location sets are creepy and the acting is believable.Some images of madness,cannibalism and paranoia are truly memorable.There is also a backyard with seven graves,a tiny bit of graphic nudity and a decapitated head.7 out of 10.
Disturbing psychodrama 'La Casa de Las Siete Tumbas' is a divinely skewed nightmare
Weirdling_Wolf1 July 2021
Talented Argentinian director Pedro Stocki's downright disturbing psychodrama 'La Casa de Las Siete Tumbas' which is a divinely skewed nightmare, an increasingly sinister journey into the distempered, introverted mind of beautiful Clara (Soledad Silveyra) whose childhood friend Cecilia (Cecilia Cenci) forms part of a very elaborate, profoundly unsettling narrative of long-fulminating childhood trauma, darkly sexual awakening, rapidly escalating neuroses as the terribly fragile, deeply distraught, permanently housebound Clara, and when her friend Cecilia visits her on her birthday, Clara seems terribly withdrawn, anxious, seemingly obsessed with a singularly emotional event from their past, this benign birthday visit curiously acting as a powerful catalyst for a doomy reverie, filled with vividly strange, frequently disturbing dioramas, backwoods horror, psychological discords and wholly bizarre Black magic machinations make Pedro Stocki's 'La Casa de Las Siete Tumbas' an especially off-kilter delight.
'La Casa De Las Siete Tumbas' is a rare discovery, a grossly unheralded thriller that mines a singularly uncompromising reservoir of mental anguish like Polanksi's 'The Tenant' and Larraz's 'Symptoms'. The film's strident originality resides primarily in the fascinatingly oblique screenplay by gifted writer Laura Garavano, a gorgeously confounding delirium of ceaseless mystery and potent Lynchian weirdness, her gruesomely 3-dimensional 'Pig Girl', once seen is not readily forgotten! Director Stocki is blessed with a fabulous cast who create a very believable milieu out of these altogether macabre manifestations and the exquisite soundtrack by Jorge Candia is worthy of a Morricone or Cipriani, the elegiac theme draws you deeply into this mercurial miasma of screaming madness!
'La Casa De Las Siete Tumbas' is a rare discovery, a grossly unheralded thriller that mines a singularly uncompromising reservoir of mental anguish like Polanksi's 'The Tenant' and Larraz's 'Symptoms'. The film's strident originality resides primarily in the fascinatingly oblique screenplay by gifted writer Laura Garavano, a gorgeously confounding delirium of ceaseless mystery and potent Lynchian weirdness, her gruesomely 3-dimensional 'Pig Girl', once seen is not readily forgotten! Director Stocki is blessed with a fabulous cast who create a very believable milieu out of these altogether macabre manifestations and the exquisite soundtrack by Jorge Candia is worthy of a Morricone or Cipriani, the elegiac theme draws you deeply into this mercurial miasma of screaming madness!
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