Deciding to view two titles from the Abertoir Film festival,I began searching for a title to double bill. Earlier in the year seeing the outstanding The Barcelona Vampiress (2020-also reviewed),I was happy to spot another Horror from Spain streaming on the Abertoir Festival, which led to me watching snails crawl into darkness.
View on the film:
Drifting to the secluded cabin in the small town as a place to begin writing his next novel, Javier Rey gives an outstanding performance as Prieto, who Rey is unafraid from showing the nasty, snarling side of, as he snaps at the tightly-knitted locals, and confronts those questioning him over strange attacks which have been taking place around town.
Adapting her novel as Prieto attempts to write his next one, Sandra Garcia Nieto makes her scriptwriting debut with a a glorious mix of werewolf Horror blood lust, with a playful cynicism dripping over the abrasive psychological push-pull between the locals and Prieto.
The blossoming romance Prieto has with with local Berta (played with a fiery passion by Paz Vega) adds fuel to the fire from the residence of outsider Prieto also being the werewolf, which Nieto puts out with a deliciously macabre full circle ending.
Following each page of Prieto's writing, director Macarena Astorga presents a real page-turner of a feature film debut, via ultra-stylised dissolves of the werewolf attacks seeping into Prieto's writing sessions, leading to a blurring of reality and fiction in dolly shots catching the locals locking their eyes on the outsider every time he enters the town,as Prieto visits the house of snails.
5.0Plot summary
Spain. At late 60s years, Antonio Prieto is a successful writer who, suffering a creative crisis, decides to leave the big city and move to a remote town named Quintanar, in the deepest heart of Andalusia (South to Spain). Renting an old manor outside the town, Antonio meets beauty Berta, a real estate who introduces him in Quintanar, despite the apparent reject of the villagers. Trying to adapt himself to the nature and to the nights full of animal sounds, the rude character of the villagers and the insane atmosphere that rules the town starts to affect him, specially after to discover by chance that a man named Esteban lives imprisoned in an isolated cabin by the bartender and his wife due to his physical deformities and extreme brutality. However, Antonio finds in Padre Benito, priest of the town, a friend to talk about Quintanar, its history, and have a moment of peace. Meeting Berta's cousin Justa and her two daughters, older Sole and younger Rosita, the children accuse him to be Vimero. Puzzled about it, Antonio learns about a local legend, a mythical creature named Vimero, who is a shapeshifter that long time ago arrived to Quintanar from the mountains and killed some inhabitants. After them expelled him, Vimero cursed the town to be born with deformities for the later generations, causing fear in the town if the monster someday would return. Encouraged by Padre Benito, Antonio closes Berta as she feels attracted to him, but the tragedy happens: a night Sole is found dead and severely mutilated, plunging the town into pain and grieve, making that Inspector Mauri moves to Quintanar to find the killer. Convinced of Esteban's culpability, Antonio addresses Mauri about him, just to discover that Esteban escaped from the cabin and he is on the run. But this same night, when Antonio and Berta are in the old manor, the truth about the crime will reveal in the most bloody and horrific way.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
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"Because you smell of the city."
Builds up good, but goes nowhere
It has the darkness, it has some mystery and some twist. The setup is quite good, suspence is there, atmoshere is there, but the ending is just too abrupt. Even though it has some sense to it, it feels like lazy writing, like it was just cut and ends with nothing. Thus this movie never reaches the potential it initially had.
Fantastic
One of the better movies I've seen lately. It keeps excitement during the whole movie, the plot is great and the actors even better. If you feel like watching a bit of a scary and mysterious movie, this is the one for you!