Spain has a long and successful tradition of horror / supernatural cinema . Who can forget the spine chilling LA CABINA , a film that does for public phone boxes what JAWS does for trips to the sea side . We've also seen the likes PANS LABYRINTH and THE OTHERS become international hits opening to great critical acclaim . We even saw Danny Boyle's sequel to 28 DAYS LATER being directed by a Spanaird which turned out to be one of my favourite horror films ever so had a lot of expectations to seeing SPECTRE tonight . Afterwards I wouldn't say I was I was disappointed just that this movie has been advertised as a horror film when it's really a morbid love story with supernatural overtones
This isn't helped by the " Films To Keep You Awake " title sequence of having an animated pool of blood where a hand appears holding a human eyeball . It's grotesque and startling and gory which is everything SPECTRE is not . Instead we get a teenage boy , Tomas , being infatuated with a much older woman called Moira along with a subtext that is anti- religion as the catholic family and friends of Tomas decide Moira is a witch
With a longer running time perhaps the subtext could have been developed more since I'm the sort of person who can't get enough secular humanism in either real life or fiction . Instead director Mateo Gil concentrates on the love story . There's nothing wrong with this of course but for long passages of the movie you forget that this has any supernatural elements and when they do fleetingly appear they feel forced . Indeed you're left with the feeling perhaps the whole film would have worked better if there were no ghostly elements at all and the film portrayed religion and the small mindness of religious followers as the villain of the piece which would have certainly have made for a better ending
This isn't helped by the " Films To Keep You Awake " title sequence of having an animated pool of blood where a hand appears holding a human eyeball . It's grotesque and startling and gory which is everything SPECTRE is not . Instead we get a teenage boy , Tomas , being infatuated with a much older woman called Moira along with a subtext that is anti- religion as the catholic family and friends of Tomas decide Moira is a witch
With a longer running time perhaps the subtext could have been developed more since I'm the sort of person who can't get enough secular humanism in either real life or fiction . Instead director Mateo Gil concentrates on the love story . There's nothing wrong with this of course but for long passages of the movie you forget that this has any supernatural elements and when they do fleetingly appear they feel forced . Indeed you're left with the feeling perhaps the whole film would have worked better if there were no ghostly elements at all and the film portrayed religion and the small mindness of religious followers as the villain of the piece which would have certainly have made for a better ending