Scary Spanish Speakers

It is rare that a film of the horror gender should focus on atmosphere and suspense these days rather than gore and effects. It is hard to blame those involved as to some extent these themes have their own qualities. Often in situations where it appears that there is something lacking in the market those things we long for are in fact right in front of us. I give you two reviews to prove my point. From Spain Los Ojos de Julia and from Uruguay La Casa Muta. 

Lets begin with Los Ojos de Julia, or as you may know it Julia's eyes. this film in Spanish by director Guillem Morales is well shot and filmed in a modern way. It follows many themes and styles of western horror films with some slight but significant differences. It is a well paced film and at all times manages to keep a hold of itself, by which I mean it doesn't spill the beans early or revert to gore. the film follows the title character as she slowly becomes blind hunting for the man who may have been her twin sisters boyfriend and also her killer. Starting with a thunderous storm and the last minutes of her sisters life there is the suggestion of the super natural. As the film progresses intrigue grows and we are led on a chase in which seemingly impossible things happen and we learn about the man nobody sees. With out giving it away the ending nicely ties up the questions we have as well as giving a fitting crescendo to the suspense that has been ladled on. At times the film can seem slow and even to be drifting away from the point of interest, however this is a great example of horror with out need for immense special effects, buckets of gore, or witty high school kids out to solve a mystery. One point of annoyance for myself came at the end with an unnecessary bit of mush but its inclusion is understandable. Diverging from this praise I do find a bone to pick, not with the film itself but with some aspects of it's advertisement. not a fault unique to this film the posters show proudly the dreaded "presented by" a phrase that means someone famous was half involved so their name gets a bigger show in the hope for more income and viewing. In this case the highly talented Guillermo Del Toro's name graces the top of every poster, good that it brings in more viewers, bad as I doubt  many will remember Guillem Morales who proved his own talent with this film.

The silent house (la casa muta) is another Spanish language film but I hails from south American Uruguay. This film breaks from traditional filming and uses a post Blair Witch technical using a single shot. This means we see from the cameras perspective and have no cuts or changes. A challenging thing to do considering how often the film cleverly uses mirrors to give us perspectives of extra areas in which to glimpse or not glimpse the horrors in wait. The story follows a girl and her father who go to help repair an old house a family friend owns. However soon into their stay with the dad drifting off in a chair there are suspicious noises and the girl, scared, begs her father to investigate. Bad stuff happens. The girl, in an attempt to learn more as well as obtain the key needed to escape from the phantasm terrorising her, ventures through the house finding odd hints and clues as to the mysterious unseen figure(s). Escaping she finds the friend on his way back to the house, she is covered in blood and so he drags her back in to investigate further. More bad stuff happens. The ending is a tad confused and unless you are following carefully or a horror film buff who totally guessed the plot in the first five minutes you may find yourself asking WTF. However despite the odd ending there is still a nice handful of suspense with a number of "shit your pants" shocks, one including black birds flying in your face.

As I said before what these films both prove is that effects are no necessity for fear and neither is gallons of blood and piles of body bits. Both have blood, but in the required amounts, and though not always the CGI of Hollywood both use clever effects where necessary. I would also like to enforce that these reviews are the celebration of two well made horror films I greatly enjoyed. It is not an attack on all modern American filming or praise that should encompass all foreign films as undoubtedly there are bad foreign films that simply don't make it to us. It is a pity that there are however many great foreign films that don't get to us, and if they do have limited release. Worse still should they prove successful they are likely to be remade, heaven forbid the mass public be forced to read subtitles or that big production companies should miss out on the money.