User reviews

A man walks with his child and then he gets trapped at a phone booth while some outlookers attempt unsuccessfully to free him. After that , some operatives from the telephone company have in store for him by transporting on a truck throughout Madrid capital, along the way he is taunted and mocked by the people who observe him. Later on, the imprisoned person suffering puzzlement and horror as he arrives in a large facilty where he discovers extraordinary surprises until a creepy finale.

Splendid and succint Short with a great acting by Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez. This is an astonishing, shocking, and amazing film, almost surrealist, containing some weird images and eerie happenings. It is sad as well as poetic when some some clowns watching pitily the desperado protagonist. It packs interesting, twisted and bizarre script from the prestigious Jose Luis Garci and Mercero himself. There stands out the awesome acting from Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez who gives a terrific role. And including various brief appearances by notorious Spanish secondaries as Agustin Gonzalez, Goyo Lebrero, Maria Vico , Blaki and Tito Garcia.

It provides an evocative and atmospheric cinematography by Federico G Larraya, who photographed For a fustful of dollars by Sergio Leone. As well as frightening and thrilling musical score, addiing religious chores. Well produced by Jose Salcedo and nicely directed by recently deceased Antonio Mercero who made several TV Series as Cronicas de un pueblo, Ese señor de negro, Turno de Oficio, Manolito Gafotas and films as Las delicias de los verdes años, Don Juan mi querido fantasma, Esperame en el cielo, Planta 4, Hora de los valientes, El tesoro, Y tu quien eres, being his greatests hits , La guerra de papa, Toby and the Series Verano Azul with Antonio Ferrandis as the unforgettable Chanquete. Rating 8/10 above average.

When I was a child I played outside. I was happy. I did not know about life. I skipped school. I looked at the stars. I was innocent. I loved purely the girl I saw across the street. I was happy. I like films that move me. 'Soft' films like Field of dreams. I'm not a critic. I like happy endings. This is not a film I would have chosen to watch. I tuned in to this once by accident when I was young. It has never left me. I'm not happy I watched it. It changed me. It stole my childhood. I would not have missed it for the world. To this day I speak of it. No one I know has ever seen it. I always wondered if I imagined it. Having seen IMDb I now know it was real. Now I have worse fears. Was this really a film or a message sent to just a few to warn us. A warning. A WARNING. I would have missed it for the world. Oh God.

I saw this movie in the early 1980s, possibly as a matinee before Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, and it made such a deep impression on me that i paid no attention to the main feature! It starts off quite simply with our hero becoming stuck in the telephone box [La Cabina] and develops through his efforts to free himself with the assistance of onlookers who are initially amused,then concerned and finally bored to the point where they ignore his plight.Shades of Candid Camera i thought,but nothing prepared me for the terrifying finale when he learns his fate.Like "The Haunting"[1963] this film work on a deeper psychological level,playing on our fear of being in situations we cannot control and the ending seems all too plausible. Not one for the kids, but an easy 10/10

I saw this film in the 1970s and even as a late teenager it gave me the creeps. For many years afterwards I kept my foot between the telephone box and the door. Silly I know but.. There are only a handful of films that have left their mark on me and this is one of them. Have been searching high and low to buy a copy for many years and often wonder how dated it would seem now. I know of only 2 other friends who have seen it and it has left a similar impact on them. The story is a simple one and you know that it seems silly and he will eventually get out and have the mickey taken out of him. I was certainly not prepared for the ending.

La Cabino is a film constructed on simplicity and brilliance. The story about a man trapped inside a public phone-booth starts off as a comedy and then gradually spirals into a surreal nightmare from which there seems no escape. This short film is rich in symbols and metaphors about loneliness and alienation in the urban landscape. How ironic that we have our main protagonist trapped, like a fly inside a glass jar, he wants to communicate his terror but the telephone is out-of-order and we bear witness to his growing unease and dread. Human dialogue is kept to a bare minimum and it feels like a silent film with a dream-like quality which becomes claustrophobic.

This stark film has an atmosphere that sears the mind and emotions of viewers and the residue it leaves behind remains long after the film has finished. The haunting and creepy cinematography is suffused with suspense and unseen menace. Terror prowls about as we watch with dried mouths. A complete masterpiece of the genre that would have Hitchcock turning livid with envy.

Sadly, there is no DVD, Laser-Disc or VHS tape available of this magnificent example of the art of the short film. Over the years there have only been a handful of broadcasts on television and even those rare outings have been at unearthly hours. Someone like Martin Scorsese, Mark Kermode or Criterion should hunt down a print and issue this amazing film for us all to enjoy.

The way it looks at present, however, is that eventually it will join the ranks of lost legendary films of the past. It will only remain in the memories of the lucky few who first experienced this bleak drama back in the 1970's.

I have not seen this film for a while but I have seen it several times on TV and I have never forgotten it. It is a film with minimal dialogue and pieces of classical music. The story is simple. A man takes his son to school. On the way home he enters a telephone box which has its door slightly ajar, like a venus fly trap waiting to snare its victims. He finds it is out of order and cannot open the door. He is helpless. People try but fail to get him out. Then the phone company's truck arrives along with several men. I won't reveal anymore but the finale is terrifying and shocking and is unforgettable. I first watched this movie when I was eight-years-old and after I wouldn't go into a phone box for a while in fear of being trapped inside. One of the truly great films.

A new telephone booth has been set in a place. A man enter to the telephone booth and tried to call someone. In the meantime, the door automatically locked. The man tries a lot to open the door from inside. Many passerby and the firefighters also tried a lot to open the door from outside. Thus, at last the telephone booth transfer to another place with the man in it to unlock or to... You have to see.

A little flick. Recommended 70%.

There's little I can add to the other comments on the film. Like others, I saw it as a child and never got over it. I spent countless hours fruitlessly trawling google for a film called "man in a glass booth". Finally after a tip-off from the only other person I know who'd seen it, I found it on YouTube. It brought it all back in the short 30-odd wobbly minutes it lasts, and reminded me that this bizarre childhood experience is central to my love of film now.

I am convinced this was shown on more than one occasion by the BBC. The range of dates and ages given by other reviewers is too broad to be down to error (you *know* how old you were when you saw La Cabina). I saw it in the early 80s, but definitely later than 1980. Maybe it was a stock film the Beeb held in case they needed to fill in late night when the schedules ran awry.

OK it's dated a little, but not enough to detract from the effect. Which is profound.

But if you've read this far you've probably already seen it. If so *please log in and vote on this title*. The reviews have made me realise how valuable IMDb is. If you've any new views on interpretation, I think we'd all like to hear them. The mean score for La Cabina is so high it would rank in the top 100 on here if only it had enough votes. So give something back, create an account and vote on La Cabina and be part of the IMDb process. We might even finally get this "little dirty gem" the attention it deserves!

Beautifully framed bright red phone booth in the middle of an open square, framed by trees. Kids play around it, nuns walk past it, and a businessman in a screamingly loud necktie curiously gets stuck in it, after trying (and failing) to use it. Stuck in this bright red phone box, in the middle of an open square, framed by the trees, like a goldfish being watched by a cat.

Filmed in a wide angle lens(?) giving distortion and aerial perspective to the phone box, its lines perfectly corresponding to the lines of an apartment building behind it.

Crowd soon gathers, some try to help him, to no avail. Even a strongman, bashing it with his massive shoulders, cannot free the guy, or even shatter the glass.

Convenient handyman proves to be not very handy at all. Fire department eventually shows up, before those responsible for installing the phone box return for it, put it on the back of a truck and drive off with it- and with the guy still trapped inside.

He is driven past another bald businessman in a screamingly loud necktie stuck in another identical phone box, also unable to free himself. Driven through burnt out industrial areas and scrap metal yards - and past a midget holding a ship in a bottle. He's even followed by a low flying helicopter, who refuses to (or is unable to) help him.

Interesting geometrical shapes framing the phone box prison throughout, film seems like a slightly overlong episode of The Twilight Zone.

I share a similar experience to many of the other posters regarding this short movie.

Late at night, over twenty years ago, flipping channels. I'm not a big fan of foreign language films but sometimes a rare gem comes along that never leaves you.

Despite having no real dialogue, you understand everything that is happening and you can follow the story from it's innocent beginnings to it's dark ending.

I have largely forgotten many of the details of this film, but it is the overall effect that stays with you long after the movie has finished.

I think the phone box was originally in a plaza and I remember the lorry ride with the hapless man on display in the over-sized 'fish bowl' for all to see.

One of those gems that rarely gets shown again. Definitely a contender for BBC FOUR to broadcast. Especially given it's short running time and provoking nature.

I think I'll email them!

The last film I watched before "La Cabina" was a thriller named "The Boat", and it was based on a successful short film. The short was amazing and tense, the full-feature film was mediocre. There aren't any links with this Spanish short film, except that "La Cabina" further proofs that short films are ideal for telling experimental horror/thriller ideas with a minimum of characters and terrifying themes that can afford themselves to remain largely unexplained. I certainly hope nobody will ever come up with the bright plan to remake "La Cabina" into a full-length film. Changes are slim, though, since it's already half a century old. And no, Joel Shumacher's "Phone Booth" starring Colin Farrell is not a remake.

Another bizarre little hobby of mine is pro-actively seeking out, here on IMDb mainly, movies from the 60s or 70s that left an everlasting impact on people during their childhood. In their user-comments, almost exclusively rated 10/10, you can read how they watched a certain movie on late-night television, and how it remained printed in their memories ever since. Or how a particular movie sparked their passion for the horror genre, or even cinema in general. Of course, I cannot share the same sentiments as these lovely people, since I often never even heard about the titles before, but I can always understand why these films are considered as personal favorites or milestones. Quite often this concerns made-for-TV movies, as the early 70s brought forward an immense load of life-altering and genuinely petrifying tales.

"La Cabina" is such a movie that changed the lives of many, and - admittedly - it's fantastic. It's an abstract and experimental short film from Spain. It can get compared to the very best episodes of "The Twilight Zone", maybe, but even then... The tone and especially the climax is a lot darker and more disturbing than anything that ever featured in TZ. Simple but effective, the plot of "La Cabina" revolves around a middle-aged man who tries out a newly installed phone booth in a little park and gets trapped inside. Bystanders, handymen, or even the police can't get him out of his little prison. Most people don't even try to help, though, as they only gather around to observe the spectacle and laugh. This particular detail makes "La Cabina" also a cynic but confronting satire. People just want to watch other people's misery. The ordeal for the trapped man even gets worse when the manufacturers of the booth come to pick him up for a humiliating drive across the city, and then still the worst is yet to come...

Modest but near-brilliant little slice of Kafkaesque TV-thriller, thriving entirely on unsettling atmosphere, the petrified grimaces of lead actor José Luis Lopéz Vázquez, and the knowledge the ending will be brute and merciless. I can only wish I watched it as a child in the early 70s.

I'm not going to reiterate the plot of La Cabina, as previous reviewers have, and I feel that as little as possible should be known about this film before going into it.

La Cabina is only 34 minutes long, but from the moment the telephone box was fixed into place, I was gripped. Antonio Mercero takes a simple concept, (which could quickly become boring) and creates a claustrophobic and surreal nightmare. There is minimal dialogue which I didn't understand as I had no subtitles. But La Cabina doesn't need a lot of dialogue to work. It relies entirely on tension and the endless question going through the viewer's mind; "Will he escape?" As for what La Cabina is all about, my first thought is a Totalitarian government. As represented by the company that installs the phone box. The phone box is acting as the device that controls and limits the man's freedom.

Either way, this film is bizarre and unique and is something which I think everyone should experience. Find it as soon as you can!

Like so many of the other reviewers, I saw this film in the early eighties on BBC2 and have never managed to see it since. It's one of those films you see in your childhood and then later in life, wonder if you'd dreamt it. I'm glad to find I hadn't and that I'm one of a select band who remember that BBC2 showing!

It's a film you'd never forget once seen. Particularly the ending, which would disturb anyone, but especially an impressionable youngster. It's in that "surreal reality" style that Spanish filmmakers seem to do best and has continued since(eg 'Abre los ojos').

Although the first 45 minutes of the film portray what - to a degree - could be seen as "normality" (ie a man getting stuck in a phone box and the attempts to release him), I remember as a child a strange feel of unease throughout, even though I didn't know the ending. Maybe it's just my claustrophobia, but I think Antonio Mercero managed to maintain the ideal mix of "normality" and "strangeness" to keep you transfixed.

Quite why it's not been shown again on terrestrial in the UK is a mystery. Yes, it's disturbing, but so are a lot of films shown today. It's also a film of quality and one that I'd recommend to anyone who wants something different and something that will leave a lasting impression. Clearly from the points made by others this film does!

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

I'm shocked. Not only because I have just watched this wonderful and sick film. Also because almost all commentators are English. And they saw the film only once! I guess that's just because comments here have to be written in English.

So let me add my Spaniard's point of view: I don't see symbols of modern world alienation, "incommunication" or anything such. Not in the 1st part of the film, at least. And, yes, you don't need to understand Spanish to get it right (though it helps). But maybe you need to know Spain.

Let me talk about the 1st part of the film (until the truck takes the poor guy away). That's a depiction of a man that falls in the misfortune of having bad luck in public. So he becomes *automatically* the district's laughing stock. People gather around him amused but mostly not helping. They don't even call for help. What's worst, they discourage attempts of help (i.e., the big man) and sharply bash the one who tried helping and failed at it. And there is also the cynicism in random comments of viewers.

See the circus people, which are often regarded as freaks, different ones: they are the only ones not laughing.

All that would have been all the same in a small village. I don't think it's about the big city and it's alienation. And the phone booth is just the means to develop the story, but I don't think it's a symbol of lack of communication.

When the police show up (by chance) they come showing their manners and attitude. Which perfectly fits in, given the historical period in Spain. You might find such manners in public forces in many other places, but this is all too normal in places under of after a dictatorship (of course, not only Spain). But the image of people is so right "in place", their aggressive attitude and lack of solidarity ... I don't know if you English speakers get what I mean. Or maybe Spain is not so "different" after all?

I first saw this 1972 short movie on TV in the late 70s. I was a young teenager and it haunted me for years. In the mid-80s I was lucky enough to record it from late night TV onto VHS, but alas, lost that tape years ago due to degradation. Stunning piece of movie imagery. Completely put me off using phone boxes for life!!! If you can hunt down a copy, buy it! There is a Director's Box set of DVDs available, but they are Spanish with no subtitles. I have just purchased a home-burnt DVD on eBay, and that is your best bet too.

If you haven't seen it and wonder what all the fuss is about, buy the movie and find out! You won't regret it. Of course, if you have seen it, you'll know what we are all freaking out about!!!