Venus (2022)

Warning: there will be last act spoilers!

Lucía (Ester Expósito), a dancer in a techno club run by organized crime, absconds with a large bag full of little blue pills that belong to her employers. On her way out with her loot, she manages to get through an altercation with the chief bouncer alive. She is however injured enough she flees to her estranged sister Rocío (Ángela Cremonte) instead wherever she was initially planning to run to.

Rocío lives with her daughter Alba (Inés Fernández) in a run-down, nearly empty apartment building, the Venus Complex. I imagine it’s situated somewhere in the neighbourhood of the buildings from Evil Dead Rise and Satan’s Slaves 2.

When Lucía arrives, Rocío is just in the process of fleeing the building in terror, panicked by poltergeist style occurrences and, as we’ll soon enough learn, Alba’s tales of a woman (?) living in the empty apartment above them. The Servant, as Alba calls her, supposedly enters their apartment through nightmares, leaving creepy and curious gifts (a jar full of children’s tears, a nasty little knife, and so on) for Alba. Which would make me want to run as well. But estranged as the sisters may be, a bleeding Lucía is enough to convince Rocío to stay another night.

The morning after some bitter sisterly rows that do not keep Lucía up to date about the potentially supernatural nastiness going on, Rocío is suddenly gone. Lucía may not have been the best sister or aunt, but she’s certainly not going to leave her little niece without any grown-up supervision, which traps her in the Venus building.

Worse still, Lucía’s former employers have managed to narrow down her whereabouts to a couple of blocks; soon enough, her boss’s boss’s specialist for difficult problems, one Calvo (Francisco Boira), will narrow that down even further with the help of a hairball spitting clairvoyant.

While the gangsters are closing in, and other complications from that side ensue, Lucía has to cope with the increasing weirdness of what happens in the apartment: horrifying nightmares and strange visions, a folder of research about the Venus Complex left by her sister that suggests a history of cult activity, child sacrifices and cannibalism, and so on. The place is a horror show – and that’s before Lucía or the audience understand anything of what’s actually going on. At the same time, a mysterious, inexplicable astronomical body moves between the Earth and the Sun, promising a rather unplanned for by science eclipse right in time for the film’s climax.

Even though the plot of Jaume Balagueró’s Venus is more of a mix of very traditional bits of occult horror, just as traditional noirish crime movie tropes, and old-fashioned moments of pulpy weirdness, and is thus somewhat lacking in the originality stakes, I find myself enjoying the film and its approach to horror quite a bit. Given my predilections when it comes to horror, I am probably the ideal audience for this film, its general vibe of tropey goodness bloodied up a bit by a couple gallons of blood, made prettier by its director’s hand for slick yet moody visuals. I am especially enamoured of its complete disregard for logic and proper narrative sense for the climax. Plus, the tropes the film so lovingly reproduces are exactly the ones I can’t get enough of in horror, its story of a weird cult trying to conjure up something terrible for no good reason while colliding with a group of realistically shitty gangsters and a young woman who becomes increasingly, absurdly heroic once push comes to shove, pushing all of my narrative buttons while doing nothing that would annoy me.

Why, I’m even okay with the bizarre ending that goes high pulp in ways I actually haven’t seen before quite like this, but lacks in cohesion with the rest of the film. But then, once you accept the story’s basic conceits about the weirdness the cultists (who are a delightful mix of SM cosplayers, elderly guys who seem to have tentacles coming out of their anuses, and cultivated crazy elderly ladies) are concocting and how they do it, logic and cohesion stop being the point at all. As a matter of fact, even if you’re not as enamoured with the film’s whole vibe as I am, you might need to admit its last scene twist may be badly prepared by anything that came before, but does quite a wonderful thing by standing the classic horror movie bullshit ending on its head, providing a bizarre happy end that works well enough as an idea and a mood to be acceptable for the high pulp world the final act most certainly takes place in.

In short: Rec 2 (2009)

It is still the same night as in Rec. The authorities send a four man SWAT team into the quarantined building with the zombie problem as protection for a Dr. Owen (Jonathan Mellor), a man supposedly from the Ministry of Health. The men are told Owen's mission is to find out what is going on in the apartment building and to rescue any survivors. The SWAT guys don't have the faintest idea what is really happening, so the first zombie contact turns out to be even more lethal than it would have been had they come prepared.

It doesn't take long until the cops learn that Owen isn't working for the Ministry of Health at all. He's a priest, and his mission is to somehow get a sample of the blood of patient zero of the whole zombie/possession mess; survivors are of no interest at all, there's only the blood, and the need to document as much proof on camera as possible (or we wouldn't have a film, and we don't want that). Why the Vatican needs proof for the supernatural is never explained. Probably on a need to know basis.

Separate from the cops and the priest, a trio of stupid teenagers (with a camera, too, don't worry), a fireman and a man looking for his family have managed to sneak into the quarantine zone, too. It's difficult to imagine that this can end good for anyone involved.

If you are one of those people who had problems with the religious zombie explanation of the first film, you should probably avoid Rec 2, because director/writers Jaume Balaguero (who seems to have a thing for the Devil, going by his other films) and Paco Plaza aren't taking anything of that stuff back. Quite the opposite, the religious elements of the plot are much stronger here, and the not necessarily supernatural zombies of the first film become full-grown supernatural menaces. On the plus side, this does explain the tactically sound behaviour the zombies already showed in the first film nicely.

This merry atheist of a reviewer didn't have any problems with any of that. If I can accept the walking dead, I can also accept the walking dead possessed by demons for the length of a movie.

Rec 2 isn't a plot heavy film anyway. Exposition and moments of silence do not amount too much of its running time. Like its predecessor this is a film that proudly wears the banner of the horror film as a chaotic rollercoaster ride. That is not exactly my favourite type of horror film, but - as it was with the first part - Rec 2 is so breathless, exciting and brutal that it just gets the adrenaline pumping. There's a wonderful sense of panic about the proceedings the viewer is allowed to witness, strong enough to help one ignore all implausibilities the script might or might not contain.

Apart from its successes at making me jumpy and nervous, the only other memorable things about Rec 2 are the meanest child zombies I have ever seen and the film's open disgust with authority, here represented by the dubious priest Owen who is as much a servant of a loving god as I am a nun.

That's all, and it's more than enough for a satisfying movie.

 

Technorati-Tags: spanish movies,in short,zombies,jaume balaguero,paco plaza,horror

Los Sin Nombre (1999)

aka The Nameless

Claudia's (Emma Vilarasau) little daughter Angela has been kidnapped by a person or persons unknown. The girl must have been gone for quite some time already when the film starts, so the responsible police inspector Massera (Karra Elejalde) does not seem to hold out much hope for her survival. The parents' worst fears are confirmed when the police find the mutilated corpse of a child at about Angela's age. It's difficult to identify her precisely, though, because her killers have made some efforts to destroy anything that would make her easily identifiable by crushing the child's teeth and dissolving her body in acid. Still, what is left of the girl has the same shortened leg as Angela did, and there is a bracelet that belongs to her found close by, so Massera is reasonably sure that it is in fact the poor child he was looking for in the first place.

Five years later, Claudia still hasn't recovered from the loss. Her husband has left her long since and she is mostly keeping a sane face by popping copious amounts of pills. Around the fifth anniversary of her daughter's when her depression is at its worst, Claudia gets a strange phone call - a girl pretending to be Angela tells her that she is in fact still alive, held all this time by the people who kidnapped her. Angela wants Claudia to come and get her. She is at an old beach sanatorium her mother should remember well.

Claudia does in fact remember the sanatorium as a place close to a beach she and her husband took Angela to quite often. This, and her desperate wish for her daughter to be alive, is enough to make her believe the voice on the phone.

When Claudia arrives at the deserted sanatorium, she finds nothing except for a few mattresses, and books and brochures about pain. This is enough for her to go to Massera for help.

The inspector has just quit his job at the police after a prolonged leave of absence caused by (I suppose) the depressive meltdown he had when his wife and newborn child died in childbed. Massera is in his own way just as broken as Claudia is and agrees to look into the old case again out of a mixture of guilt and identification with the woman's grief.

He starts his investigation doing what he should have done five years ago and looks for other children besides Angela with a slight deformity of the leg who could have been the dead child the police found. He quickly finds a fitting candidate, and from there, it is not a long way until he uncovers the tracks of the Nameless, a hidden cult set on "synthesizing pure evil" through pain and suffering.

Jaume Balaguero is a hit and miss director for me, with a body of work that reaches from terribly flawed films like Darkness to minor masterpieces like [Rec], yet even his bad films are at least interesting and don't fail through incompetence or cowardice but because their director is willing to experiment a little. And by nature, experiments do sometimes turn out wrong.

Los Sin Nombre is definitely one of his good films. Or it is one of his good films for me, I should say. It is hardly easy to stay objective when talking about a film for which one is something like the ideal viewer. It's really quite surprising how many of my personal fictional obsessions are in the film.

Let's see, the film is based on a book by one of my favorite horror authors, Liverpool's Ramsey Campbell. It's about an occult conspiracy reaching back into World War II, busy with a goal that does make a certain amount of sense in light of real occult theories (and foreshadows elements of Martyrs), yet also have a wonderful pulp energy. It is rather slow and ponderous and has as many scenes of people doing research as a Call of Cthulhu scenario. It is a bleak and pessimistic film, with damaged middle-aged protagonists dragging themselves forward towards some inevitable and terrible truth. So it is pretty much the kind of horror film (or occult conspiracy thriller) I myself would want to make. Under these circumstances, Balaguero would have to have done something really stupid to not end up with a film I find completely brilliant.

It helps of course that the film is excellently directed, with a sparseness and a - surprising when you look at the parts of the story that concern torture and dead children - reluctance to get all that explicit some people will probably find boring or off-putting, but Los Sin Nombre really needs its deliberate rhythm to be effective. You probably could tell a story like this as a fast action adventure, but you would lose most of the film's emotional resonance if you did and at best end up at the sentimental tosh level of Spielberg.

Balaguero's use of colour is also quite interesting. The picture is filmed in the cold greys and browns too many films like to use, and I'd usually be the first to protest about them as being monochrome, bleak and rather boring, but in this case browns and greys are exactly the colours the story needs to mirror the internal life of its protagonists; the bleakness is what defines the film.

Said protagonists are the kind of persons you usually won't find in horror films. They are middle-aged, unglamorous and beaten by life and so excellently played by their actors that any doubt I could have had about the construction of the plot just dissolved.

So, for once, I don't have anything negative to say about a film. I just hope it doesn't take too long until another director uses his telepathic powers to make exactly the film I would like to see.

 

Technorati-Tags: spanish movies,horror,jaume balaguero,ramsey campbell,emma vilarasau,karra elejalde,reviews

To Let (2006)

Clara (Macarena Gomez) and Mario (Adria Collado) are a young pair in desperate need of their own living space. Until now, they've been living with Mario's family, but Clara is pregnant and now seems to be the best time to find a place of their own. It's just not too easy for a pair with limited finances to find something adequate. So it's a nice surprise when someone pops an advert for an apartment into their mailbox that seems like a very good fit.

The first disappointment hits before they have even set foot into the building where their potential future home is situated. The building lies in the outskirts of town in what looks like the brownest, greyest post-industrial catastrophe zone imaginable. When they follow the landlady (Nuria Gonzalez) inside, their mood isn't getting any better. The building is dilapidated (and probably smells less than ideal), with mannequins lying about as if Thomas Ligotti was planning on popping up every second, and still the woman gushes about the beauty of their surroundings and does not treat them as potential tenants but as if they had already decided for renting her apartment.

Which is in fact very far from their minds. When Clara has an episode of pregnancy-caused nausea and the two are left alone in the bedroom, Mario finds a pair of old shoes he threw away some time ago. Clara tops this puzzling find with the photo of Mario and herself she finds, though.

Most people would now probably try to get away as fast as possible, but Clara and Mario are very special movie people and try to get an explanation out of the woman. All they really get is a toaster colliding with Mario's head and a crazy landlady chasing Clara through the house.

Turns out the good woman is a little loony and in the business of populating her house with people. Even if she has to tie them up and gag them. Or probably even kill them.

To Let is Jaume Balaguero's contribution to a Spanish TV anthology of shortish horror films called Six Films To Keep You Awake and awake it most certainly kept me. It's quite difficult to fall asleep when you're confronted with this much screaming, camera shaking and running around. After the first quarter of an hour, during which the film makes a very convincing case for Balaguero's love for Argento, Bava and (at least colour-wise) Fulci, it turns into a very typical tour de force horror piece.

On the positive side, it's technically very well made. Clever framing and excellent editing come to Balaguero so natural that they look like easy achievements.

But a fast and hysterical carnival ride (and not a very effective one at that) is all the film is. The characterization is non-existent to laughable. Without some very game actors trying their best to let nothing look like something the film would come crashing down under a big dollop of "who cares"; as it stands they barely keep the film believable enough not to be completely annoying. The revelation of the madwoman's motives is the moment when the film just loses me - it would have been better to have no explanation at all than something this superficial.

To Let also contains some very puzzling directorial choices, like a short dream sequence in which Carla dreams that her experiences in the house have been just a dream, and that she is in fact just arriving there, threatening to go all Ground Hog Day on us, just to awake again with the first half hour of the film still having happened. Nothing of this is going to be important for anything during the rest of the movie. Also quite beyond my understanding is the question why Balaguero decided to make such a slow, moody beginning only to let the film drift into turned up to 11!!! mode as soon as the opportunity shows itself, without ever trying to build up to the inevitable escalation.

Of course there is also the obligatory odiously obvious twist (OOOT) to cope with, a genre tradition that always manages to annoy me when I encounter it.

When the film finally shouted itself to the end, I was nearly crying, although it were only tears of laughter threatening to drop. The film had become a victim of the fate of many other stories mostly occupied with topping themselves - once you have reached a certain point, the tense easily transforms into the ridiculous. The point at which this happens is very different for every viewer, though. I found myself with the same reaction to the finale of Inside (from the moment on the cop shortly revives), so your mileage may very well vary.

Still, I'd rather recommend Balaguero's own [Rec] as a film that achieves the tour de force effect a lot better and that finds more time for the kind of tension that's not based on screaming and running around.

 

Technorati-Tags: spanish movies,horror,jaume balaguero,reviews