Amazon.com video review:
Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar grabbed the
attention of American audiences with his dreamy thriller Open Your
Eyes, but he earlier sent shock waves throughout Spain in 1996 with
this disturbing debut. Thesis is a quietly creepy psychological thriller
about a young college student, Ángela (Ana Torrent) investigating the
social fascination with sensational violence for her thesis project. In her
search for violent video footage, she stumbles onto what may be a real live
snuff film, a videotape that her professor was watching before his untimely
death. With the help of a geeky gore junkie she uncovers a conspiracy that may
include her handsome but sinister new boyfriend, her thesis advisor, and
even her weirdo partner. When she uncovers one too many secrets lying in
the catacombs of the university basement, she realizes that she may be the next
victim. It goes on perhaps too long, and Amenábar's pointed observations
on the lure of violence and the dark side of human nature are lost as the
spiraling mystery spins into a first-person nightmare, but his skill at
weaving a paranoid world where evil may lurk behind every friendly face is
undeniable. Thesis is reminiscent of Brian De Palma's early
thrillers: dark, stylish, subdued, and bubbling with the characters' guilty (and
ultimately dangerous) fascination with the transgressive. --Sean
Axmaker
