As of the date of writing this, the boxed set of 6 Spanish horror films "
to keep you awake" of which this is a part is selling for silly collectors' prices in the UK, whereas the Region 1 copy I recently got from the USA came out of the bargain bin. And how pleased I am I took a gamble on it, as each and every one of the shortish (75 min) films (TV programmes?) has proved a real treat. They're not necessarily uniformly successful, but they're beautifully filmed, convincingly performed, and each brings real intelligence and no little originality to its execution. As a whole, the series bears comparison with the American "Masters of Horror", and I think betters them, though it's a little unfair to say that as with only six episodes there's less opportunity to mis-fire. Still, overall, I can't overstate my recommendation to any horror fan looking for some rewarding alternative to the current relentless diet of zombies, torture and teenagers-going-to-a-remote-cabin-in-an-SUV.
Equally, though, there's no doubt in my mind that this episode is the standout. At heart this is a fairly straightforward ghost story (and there are even echoes of Peter Straub's "Ghost Story" in the plot device of old men reminiscing about a femme fatale of their adolescence), but the elements are orchestrated with real skill, and the "twist" (derided by one reviewer here as "making no sense" oh, but believe me, it makes very terrible sense indeed) came as a real shock to me, no less for being delivered with perfect timing, by which I mean I realised what the old man (Tomas) was going to see in the window just a split second before he actually saw it, but no sooner. Beyond the immediate rewards of actually watching it though a creepy accumulation of authentic dread, just enough real shocks, and full-on gore barely glimpsed the film continues to haunt the imagination and it is only in retrospect that its full dreadful implications become clear. Though in my mind this film sits alongside "The Devil's Backbone" , Del Toro's film for all its political and historical complexity ends up with an almost cornily (but charmingly so) traditional ghost, and the final message is a profoundly humanistic one of love and simple courage. No such redemptive hope enlivens "Spectre", however, the devastating nihilism of which only becomes fully clear as you contemplate afterwards the ramifications of the terrible events portrayed. There is a wrong, or possibly several wrongs, at the heart of this drama, and the younger Tomas perpetrates an act of betrayal both ugly and banal, the consequences of which are truly terrible. But has he, or indeed any of the characters in the film since nobody emerges happy, or successful actually erred to the extent of deserving the appalling comprehensive undoing that comes to him and them? And to what extent is Tomas even responsible; arguably, his betrayal was only the convenient trigger for what was inevitably to follow. The awful, anti-humanist, irrationalist thought occurs that actually he was doomed before the film even began. At the opening of Dante's Inferno, Dante finds himself lost "I took a turn in a dark wood" - but can't think where he went wrong, and so it is with Tomas, whose steps we try to retrace with mounting bewilderment. He was only a schoolchild! But as Tomas's lover hauntingly says to him "I am the weaver of your destiny
". These thoughts and speculations are profoundly shocking to those of us who hope to believe in the power of rationality and the possibility of human progress.
I apologise for talking in these oblique terms, but I am hoping to pique the reader's interest and make them want to see this film without having to introduce a spoiler warning.
As a sub-species of the horror film, the ghost story is particularly difficult to carry off. Perhaps it's because whereas the written word can evoke the darkest imaginings of the reader's nightmares, the literal camera can only really portray them, and inevitably ends up with a Caspar-like banality. I'm trying to tick great filmed ghost stories off on my fingers, and I fear just one hand will do (with perhaps the other hand for ones I only know by reputation, like Kwaidan). There's Devil's Backbone, Robert Wise's The Haunting, Don't Look Now (though as with the Devil's Backbone, this is not the ghost you were first thinking of). What else? Possibly Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape, though that is filmed and performed in an early 70s TV style that is now distractingly dated. Curse (or Night) of the Demon? True, that was from a tale by M.R.James, but it's not really a proper ghost story. One of the greatest ghost stories written post WW2 is Elizabeth Jane Howard's "Three Miles Up", but that received a dismally inappropriate British TV treatment, as clunkily and uncomprehendingly literal-minded as the lamentable remake of The Haunting. We can argue about the details of what is and isn't on the list, but my recommendation is clear. This little gem is a real find, and sits deservedly in this very exclusive company.
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