La hora fría

The Cold Hour takes several cliché' horror film tropes, combines them in entirely unexpected ways, adds brilliant acting and great cinematography and ends with a purely science fictional image that will live in my mind for a really long time. This is a well put-together ensemble piece. I'd tracked it down, having been encouraged by the largely positive IMDb reviews, but mainly because of the Silke (Hornillos Klein) Rule: "Buy Anything She is In" that dates back to Julio Medem's wonderful, Philip K. Dickian, Tierra. Purely from the perspective of The Silke Rule, this film could almost have been seen as a disappointment since, although her character Maria is top billed, all of the characters are extremely well balanced and no one is really the lead. Every part is so well written and so well acted, however, that the viewer comes out ahead. In fact, the primary PoV is 8 year old Jesús, played by Omar Muñoz, and he is wonderful, despite my normal antipathy towards child actors. I can't, alas, say much more without revealing too much.

If you've read the other reviews, you already know that the primary situation appears to be similar to 28 days, et al. (This MAY actually be correct - if you prefer clear, pat explanations from a film, rather than have it ask as may questions as it answers, leaving you with a delicious sense of cognitive dissonance, then go watch something else). However, I've never seen that ultra-standard plot trope handled THIS way, or combined with THAT. Run, don't walk, to get La Hora Fría if you admire and enjoy originality, a continual sense of surprise, and a refusal on the part of the creators to spell everything out; if, like me, you prefer leaving the experience of a film with a deep sense of unease and the feeling that you have a lot of thinking to do especially about what that final shot meant. Your mind will have something to mull over for a long, long time.