Spanish cultmovie (in Spain) i had never heard about. Indie artmovie
drama and experimental psychological thriller and something like a mix
of
a student film from David Cronenberg, Gaspar Noé and David Lynch.
Did i like it ? I don't know, but i do remember it for sure, interesting
stuff.
Short description: A mentally ill young man is obsessed with his film
camera and he films everything he sees, and a failed B movie director
and
his drug junkie girlfriend is drawn into his paranoia that the camera
wants to hurt you somehow, to do something diabolic.
If Cronenberg made body horrors Zulueta here made a Film Camera horror,
could a film camera be dangerous and have a nasty scheme going ?
Could our overstrung protagonist be right that any film, a 8 mm film
reel in this case, hides terror between the film frames and can change
our
physical reality and make us disappear into some alternate dimension
? A Film Camera can be a scary thing.
This film had three actors that would become famous
in Spain, Eusebio Poncela (born 1945), Cecilia
Roth (born in Argentina 1956) and toothy
but cute Marta Fernández Muro Ortiz (born 1950)
and all three known from i.a. Pedro Almodovar films. Will Moore only
made this one film.
Director and designer Iván Zulueta or Juan Ricardo
Miguel Zulueta Vergarajauregui was born and died in San Sebastian (1943-2009).

José Sirgado (played by Eusebio Poncela) is a
director of B movie horror films and he's cutting his latest, a werewolf
movie, when he receives
a parcel with a 8 mm film reel and an audio cassette. José finds
his on and off girlfriend Ana (Cecilia Roth) staying in his apartment
and they are
both junkies and shooting heroine. The parcel was sent from Pedro (Will
Moore) a guy that José vaguely remembers, and a Flashback follows
where José went by car with his ex-girlfriend and Pedro's cousin
Marta to visit Pedro in a house in the countryside outside of Madrid.
Marta has told José that Pedro shoots and projects secret films,
films that only he can watch and that he screams out of fear when he's
doing it.
José also brings Ana with him to meet Pedro
and to watch one of his films. Pedro is very excited but the mystical
secret film is just a bunch of
images of the sky, of greenery, flowers and of water. A strange guy
and probably a crackpot.
Back to present, José is irritated that his werewolf movie sucks
and that Ana has become addicted to smack, their relationship is chaotic.
He listens to Pedro's cassette tape and he watches the film reel Pedro
sent him, with everything Pedro filmed since last time. Pedro now lives
in
a Madrid apartment and José goes looking for him. What has happened
and what is real ?
After watching too many spanish horror movies, gialli,
WIP trash, slashers and an assortment of sleazy B movies for the last
year i at first found
this film to be too arty for my taste .... but afterwards it has grown
on me and think about it and the interesting ending.
The Spanish Bluray presents the film in 1.66:1 ratio with a spanish
audio DTS-HD MA 2.0 with english subtitles.
Many hours of Extras - All in spanish without any english subtitles:
Española TV version, two short movies by Zulueta 1. Leo es pardo
2. Párpados and three Documentaries 1. Iván Z 2. Arrebatos
3. La Décadance