Penumbra (2011) Horror cult

Penumbra (2011) - Well the third installment in the Adrian Garcia Bogliano athon is certainly a clever film. It sets the view up with almost an antihero and then flips the expected plot course on its head and then you realized why she is so unlikable. Using the conflict in the relationship between many Argentinian born residents and Spanish nationals who own and live in the country to draw lines in this film was very smart. Not being from there I am not totally sure how much the two groups do or do not get along but it really worked in how it was presented in this film. It allows the main character Marga (Christina Brondo) not only to be drawn as a rude pushy European but to be seen in the Buenos Aires neighbor in which the story takes place to be a real outsider. This outsider status is essential to the film's final outcome and is really handled well by writers Adrian and Ramiro Garcia Bogliano.
   The story centers around Marga a very busy business woman who is trying to quickly rent an apartment she inherited. The character is built as a too busy and often annoyed, pushy Spaniard who although she needs to deal with this personal chore does not have the time. Pressure from her boss, and backstabbing of her coworker makes the simple task of renting out the apartment a bit more to handle than she wants. Constantly having to make and receive calls she is distracted by her phone regularly in the film. It is a theme that runs through these writers movies. In Rooms for tourists it is the phone that is the focus of salvation for the lead character. In Cold Sweat the internet is used to attract victims to the torture house and also to help the protagonists as they navigate the dangerous conditions there. Here it is a large reason why Marga ends up not seeing the signs that something may not be right with the real estate man Jorge (Berta Muniz) as she interacts with him about the apartment.
  Marga is set up to be a character who is not very likable and this is essential to the story. First we see her being bothered by a homeless man. She is offended but in this tight knit neighborhood the people who live and work there see him as harmless so when she is pushy with the local police officer in talking about the homeless man he sort of takes her side. Her snippy remarks about the locals in front of the cop will never help her get on his good side. Marga talks on the phone to people back in Spain and her disdain for Argentina comes through with sharp tones that anyone overhearing her will make her seem like an asshole. She sees it as a primitive country compared to where she is from and thinks the people are uncultured. (You might compare her to the Ugly American stereotype if this were a US character.) We also see her interacting with a woman who lives in the apartment.  The woman (Mirella Pascual) makes an effort to connect with the Spaniard, a second generation immigrant she still holds some of her parents love for Spain. Their family left during the civil war but she still holds a connection. Marga is a bit dismissive and after being nice to get what she wants rudely ushers herself out of the apartment. (The funny side incident with the fish was really good.) All in all the character is not likable and so as the main plot develops the viewer finds themselves wanting her to notice the danger developing around her and maybe hoping that the plot will give her a story arch where she learns not to be so dislikable.
  That main plot develops in the apartment as it becomes apparent that Jorge is not who he says he is. Obvious to us in the audience it takes a while for the perpetually distracted Marga to catch on. Other associates of Jorge's arrive, Victoria ( former child star Camila Bordonada), Angela (Victoria Witemberg), Alberto (Diego Cremonesi) all with the promise of a lucrative rental contract from their boss Salva (Arnaldo Andre). Marga should have been nervous very early but the idea of having the business taken care of in a day and for a lot more money than she hoped kept her believing even when stories stopped making sense. Finally when the gig is up and our protagonist realizes that things have gone horribly wrong it is too late. She is captured by the group and is witness to the reason they came to the apartment.
 I will not spoil that here because there is definitely a recommendation coming from this blog to see this film. Let me say though the first scene of the film sets up the climax but I was surprised by the direction it took. The epilogue is equally surprising but when you then think back on how it was all set up it makes great sense. I may be short changing Ramiro Garcia Bogliano but it is not intentional. He has been a writer and co-director on this film and writer on "Cold Sweat" and "Rooms for Tourists" so I am sure a lot of the very entertaining writing is his. I really enjoyed this film and will continue my look at this director in my next installment, "Here comes the Devil"

Cold Sweat (2010) Horror psychos

Cold Sweat (2010) - Continuing on the switch to the movies of Adrian Garcia Bogliano I get to "Cold Sweat" a story of a couple radicals of right wing anarchy who years after they have past their prime carry on a sick and twisted vision of creating utopia through torture. Bogliano like in "Rooms for Tourists" uses a house as the tight claustrophobic setting for the fear to come. The opening of the film give us a bit of a history lesson in Argentinian politics. Scenes and images of right and left wing protest flash across the screen telling the story of 25 cases of stolen dynamite and the torture and abuse rendered by sides to try to find it. The right had the Triple A, an anticommunist death squad that operated under President Isabel Peron in the mid 1970's. It is an origin story for a couple of the characters in the film but when viewing it you really don't know that yet. The intro although useful to understanding the motivations of the bad guys in this film is secondary as they are the only ones affected by that story. It is like showing scenes of pacific fighting during WWII just before you tell a story about a Japanese soldier who is still fighting the war 50 years later. This story is very similar, the two old men who are the antagonists of the story are still fighting the Communist in a society that has already moved on.
  The modern day story of these two men is introduced by two other characters Ramon (Facundo Espinosa) and Ali (Marina Glezer) who are working together to find Ramon's ex-girlfriend Jackie (Camila Velasco) who went missing after hooking up with a blonde guy on the internet. Ali and Ramon are outside the house of the old men and little do they know the house of horrors awaiting them inside the house. They think this blonde guy is a person who Jackie is fooling around with and Ramon is obsessed with catching them. He has looked through her email and chats and he and Ali have tracked him to this house. Ali goes in as another flirty girl to meet the blonde guy and hopefully have a look around. When after entering the house a white haired old guy (Omar Gioiosa) sneaks up behind her and knocks her out you known something is horribly amiss.
  What this leads to is a story of a couple old agents still fighting the war against communism in a very unique way. They could be said to just be crazy at this point and not really in touch with the reality of the world but even so they are committed to their cause. Can you call killing young people a cause? We enter their world with victim number one (Noelia Vergini) harnessed up hanging in a room. Walker using old guy (Omar Musa) puts a drop of acid down where the young woman's head can be moved. She is terrified, we don't know it yet but he has put nitroglycerine on the girl's head and if it comes in contact with the acid it will cause it to explode. The scene is a very good and gory example of setting the stage. Ali also captive in the room knows the stakes after watching the demise of the first victim and when a drop of nitro is put on her forehead she is clear of the implications. I have never seen this as a murder method and liked the original (at least for me) way of execution.
Unfortunately what follows can only be termed a horrible mess of poor decisions by the protagonists of the film. When Ali does not come out of the house he looks to go in through a back window to find her. He is clumsy and not really brave but manages to get to her in the maze of an apartment. I am always frustrated with the idea that tech savvy people can't seem to make a simple phone call to the police instead of putting themselves in jeopardy. I am not saying that the film making is bad, I just hate the horror trope of people going in to the horror situation on their own without first calling for help. The actual sneaking around the house are pretty tense and suspenseful scenes, especially when Ramon ends up behind a two way mirror where he witnesses the first on screen killing. Ramon does just that setting up a film where he and Ali sneak around but can't seem to find a way to leave. Ali after being freed by Ramon wanders about never finding a way out. Ramon still seeking the Jackie decides to stay around until he finds her. Shit if he had called the police in the beginning all of this would have been resolved in an hour, the old men arrested and everyone that could be save would have been. Instead we get a fairly enjoyably tense game of cat and mouse based on these horrible decisions.
  Baxter the white haired old man is still fit enough to be a physical threat but the walker guy is not and Ramon could have over powered him anytime but instead just sneaks around avoiding contact. When he finds Jackie covered in nitro and scared he has to problem solve getting her out without blowing her up. The film like I said is somewhat unique and entertaining. As we move into the third act the old men discover the young people and we get a final gory showdown that is worth the look. There is also some (unintentional?) humor when the nitro covered Jackie is dragging herself across the floor trying not to drip the explosive off her skin and is being pursued ever so slowly by the walker guy. He has a syringe of acid and is trying to blow her up by squirting it at the nitro on her body. It is the slowest chase scene in the history of film but even still well done on a movie making level.

A decent film I thought it was original and fun with unlikely villains and some messages about how there is a danger in modern technology. Early in the film we see both sides of technology, Ramon reading the messages of Jackie learns she is going to meet this blonde guy and affectively cheat on him. Also though with Ali they track the IP to this house and the benefits of the internet is used to find the missing woman. Jackie was attracted to the house by chatting with a blonde guy but that guy another captive is not even really communicating with the girl. Instead we learn that the walker guy is the brains behind it. He sees youth of the day as stupidly too trusting and exploits the internet to attract victims.These old men use the internet against a generation too trusting of chat rooms and avatars it is quite a message. Then when Ramon goes into the torture room to save Ali he quickly uses his phone to look up what to do to neutralized nitroglycerine, a good use of technology in a tight situation. There was no cliche loss of signal or anything like that. A draw back is the strange cannibal women of the cellar, who are never really explained. I guess past victims who were never killed, or maybe the way the old men got rid of the bodies?
  So I will recommend this film it has some cool ideas and is original enough to keep you interested. Having to overlook the stupid behavior of a couple of the characters is challenging but still I think the tension created by the director out weighs those flaws. So far in this new  Bogliano themed week I am pretty please. There is a lot of originality, a definite skill for creating tension and what seems a love for making horror movies. I look forward to the next choice for this this director Penumbra.  So enjoy.

Rooms for Tourists (2004) horror travel

Rooms for Tourists (2004) -  This very low budget Argentinian film by Adrian Garcia Boliano is a horror film through and through. The idea of religious people deciding who deserves life and who does not is an interesting contradiction in this film. Done in black and white with a deep throbbing score the film presents a frightening mood that is thick compelling. Its imagery if stark and scary with the main character Theda (Elena Siritto) having visions of brutal acts. Little do we know that those initial dreams all will tie into the story about to unfold. Film making wise it is a clever trick, while it seems completely unrelated at least for a while each of these scenes of torture and death are later revealed to be a history of the village the film takes place in. Theda is a nervous wreak and is jumpy from the start obviously out of her element. When she and four other girls have to get a connecting train in a small town they are thrown into events connected to their unbeknown shared secret.
The first most striking thing about this film is how the music makes interaction with the locals very ominous. Instead of watching people go about normal interactions about train schedules that we would think is nothing, instead there is a pall, an idea the music gives us that things are not right in this village. When they see the local church and the ultra conservative preacher delivering his hell for sinners sermon they are all a bit more on edge. Theda's nerves actually help her in this film. She is so worried about having missed the connecting train that she starts to look for a phone to call home. She manages to call her father early in the film but can only leave a message for him to call her back at 7 am but will she survive the night?
Low angle shot camera shots and shadows which are more engaging in black and white add to the horror feel of the film. When five young women miss their connecting train they are thrown together and offered rooms at a local house. In this small town the populous is devout in their following of the fire and brimstone preacher you know that it will effect these young ladies before the film is over.  At this point I am thinking more of Children of the Corn where people from the outside come into a small town and are put in jeopardy.When we learn that Elena is struggling with the fact that she is pregnant we are given a hint to the mystery. Taking the rooms in the house and after a ominous dinner with the moralizing preacher we are set for the action.
  When film student Silvia (Mariela Mujica) is murdered with a cleaver in a wonderfully gruesome scene the remaining girls suddenly realize that it may be too late to escape the same fate. Finding the house boarded up and all the doors locked the young women must try to find a way to survive the night. Blonde and naive Ruth (Brenda Vera) struggles with her emotions and soon has more than the dark to worry about. Punk girl Lydia (Victoria Witemberg) saves the day but how long can the women's luck hold. Played in the closed up house with lights turned off the with only small lighting sources the film builds a nice claustrophobic feel. Add in tricks and booby traps of the locals and you have a fairly suspenseful little horror film.
  Director Boliano does a nice job in the writing with brother Romero Garcia Boliano to have the characters fight for survival not be too predictable. The girls for the most part stick together and try to problem solve the situation. They use there small group to fight back so the film does not end up feeling like a slaughterfest. It is always a plus to have strong female characters something a lot of male writers seem to have a problem writing. The nice saved at the last minute conclusion in the town was a bit on the nose but certainly set up early in the film. Then the conclusion reenforces the well thought out early imagery. The director does a really nice job making this a suspenseful and ultimately enjoyable little film. I have always found overly religious people just a bit scary and this film does everything to solidify those feelings. The music is excellent by Rodrigo Franco and the skill of this new writing tandem shows through. Now I have to note that this is far from a Hollywood film so there is no gloss to be found. My recommendation comes as a lover of horror. I have to be critical of micro budget horror so often that it is refreshing when someone does it right. Even though this is a subtitled movie (which I know a lot of my readers don't like) and it is really a micro budget, I have to recommend it. In fact since it throws off my vacation horror theme just a bit I think I will end that strand of reviews and focus on the boliano brothers a bit more and review their other two films Cold Sweat and Pnumbra with an eye to catching their latest "Here Comes the Devil" on PFV.