For some reason DramaFever, usually known for Asian programming, is providing this thriller from Argentina. (And some people are totally up in arms about it. Chill, people! Nobody's forcing you to watch it if you don't want to.) Anyway, I've never been to Argentina or watched any television program from that country, so I thought what harm could it do to try this out.
It was a dark and stormy night. A man and a woman are backpacking through the woods. They come across a crude altar in the woods. The man, Leon, explains the altar was set up by the locals in honor of Laura. She was a bright student at a nearby teeny tiny Gallogher University. She was competing in a genius contest and looked to be the one to win. Then she met with a mysterious and gory death. The university was forced to shut down because of the death. The building has been abandoned for three years and that's where Leon expects them to find shelter from the storm.
You know what's coming. We all know what's coming.
The woman (I didn't catch her name) is the usual "I don't like it here. I'm scared." Leon is the usual jerk who scares her and then wants to have sex. (For a building that's supposedly been empty for three years it's surprisingly clean.) Just as they're getting their groove on, there's a loud noise from somewhere nearby. The woman makes Leon go investigate. She sits nervously alone in a room, the camera making sure we notice she has long, brightly painted nails. Leon's been gone a long time. The woman goes to try and find him. She opens a door to what appears to be the dining room. Leon's body - minus a head - is sitting at the table, blood still squirting up through his severed arteries. The woman screams and starts to run, finding Leon's head stuck on a spike in the hallway.
The woman runs out into the woods. She falls down into a deep hole that had been camouflaged over. It's just deep enough that she can't climb out, and her brightly painted nails aren't helping her. A shadowed figure appears over the rim of the pit. The woman screams. The shadow strikes.
Next we see a young man lighting a lantern and writing in a diary. This would be Matias, our main character. He writes that he doesn't know if he'll make it to see another day. If anyone finds this diary, he wants to tell them what happened.
Skip back to Matias driving his Ford truck through the beautiful Argentine countryside. As he drives through the small town, we catch a glimpse of a man with a video camera. Matias and others are all arriving at the re-opened teeny tiny university. (What kind of university is this? There's only one building. It looks more like a ski lodge.) The Gallogher Competition, the one Laura was supposed to win, is being revived. Thirty of the smartest students in the country will be competing.
As Matias is carrying in his bags, he walks past an older couple speaking with about four or five students. They seem to be the ones in charge of the competition. The man reminds the group that traditionally the winner of the contest has usually been one of "our students" so they'd better not drop the ball. The students he's talking to I'll call the Bad Bunch.
Too many characters are introduced at once. I can't keep up with them all. Let's just say that Matias is sharing a room with Lucas, who is one of the Bad Bunch. As everyone is settling in and getting comfortable, Matias is approached by Eva Olivera. She's found an old school annual from three years ago. She shows Matias that he looks like her brother, who happened to also have been the boyfriend of the legendary Laura.
Meanwhile, the Bad Bunch have gotten the files on all the other students and they're reviewing them. Again, too many names, I can't keep up. All I can say is Matias's father is a cop, and Matias has claustrophobia. The Bad Bunch decide to target Lea, a girl who is on medication and has suicidal tendencies.
Matias goes out for a jog along the path through the woods. (It's so damp and cold. I'm shivering just watching this.) Over to the side, standing in the mist, is a young boy. Matias stops to say hello. The boy just turns and walks deeper into the woods. Being the genius that he is, Matias naturally does the stupid thing and tries to follow the boy.
Plunk! Matias falls down into the same pit the hapless woman from the beginning fell down in. He also can't get up high enough to climb out. As he's yelling for the boy to come help him, Matias finds brightly painted fingernails in the dirt walls of the pit. The boy does come back and tells Matias the woods are full of traps. As he throws a log down for Matias to use as a step up, the boy explains he lives with his grandmother, who is the cook at the university. (I'm already suspicious of the grandmother and I've not even seen her. Remember, in the first Friday the 13th, Jason doesn't kill anybody. It's Jason's mother who is the murderer.)
That evening the Principal (that's what I'm going to call the elder man) welcomes all the participants in the contest and allows them to get to know one another. This means lots of drinking and smoking of the wacky tobacky. The Bad Bunch seem to be all friendly with Lea, sharing their drinks and smokes with her until she's inebriated. At the same time, someone is outside, watching all the frivolity. We see this through their point of view. With her guard down, Lea and one of the Bad Bunch guys go to a side room and start making out. Right in the middle of this hot and heavy session, Lea glances at the window and sees a hooded figure looking in. She screams. Lea, I mean. Not the hooded figure.
The hysterical girl claims she saw Laura, half of her face gone. No one believes her, of course. Back in her room, Lea is distraught that she can't find any of her sleeping pills. She needs her sleeping pills! Her roommate, who doesn't have any sleeping pills, angrily tells Lea to drive into town and buy some pills and shut up.
So Lea does just that. As she's getting into a car, she sees a figure slowly walking towards her. She screams. Lea, I mean. Not the figure walking towards her that I suspect is the grandmother. Lea guns the car and starts driving down the dirt road. (What university is reached by a dirt road?) Suddenly she runs into a tree that's lying across the road. Lea is flung out the windshield and onto the ground. Someone walks up to her. She screams. Lea, I mean.
She's not dead, though. The next morning she's found and is taken away in an ambulance. A crowd is watching, including the mysterious cameraman who is filming all this. Sheriff Marconi worries that the trouble from three years ago is starting up again. He notes that the tree didn't just happen to fall over, it was cut.
The Principal announces to the students that the accident was just that - an accident. He also reveals how Lea has a history of psychological troubles and will be kept in the hospital for observation. When Matias returns to his room he finds a note written to him, asking to meet someone at Laura's altar. Marconi sits down to discuss the incident with the Principal. The whole time they're talking, someone is outside washing the windows. Is that a woman? Is it the grandmother? I can't tell.
Matias goes to the altar and surprisingly it's the cameraman who meets him. He explains that he's in the midst of filming a documentary about the legend of Laura, so now we're in Blair Witch territory. He warns Matias to be careful.
Later, Matias is out for a walk when he's intercepted by Sheriff Marconi. Marconi wants the young man to be a mole for him so he'll know what's going on inside the secretive contest. Something is going on around here. Just two weeks ago a pair of backpackers disappeared and still haven't been found. This reminds Matias of the hole he fell into. The one with fingernails and blood that he found no reason to report about. Marconi asks to see the hole and Matias leads him to where he thinks the spot it, but there's no hole. The ground is solid.
Lea is being kept in a teeny tiny hospital. What narrow hallways! Once again we see the point of view of someone coming into the dark and tiny hospital. The nurse (the only one who seems to be on duty) is asleep. The Mysterious Person enters Lea's room. Lea, wearing an ill-fitting oxygen mask, starts to get hysterical. We do get to see some gloved hands reaching for her when...
Matias shows up. The Mysterious Person quickly ducks into a closet. Lea can only cry, unable to communicate that someone is in the room. The nurse finally wakes up from her nap and comes to check on her patient. Seeing Lea is hysterical, the nurse gives her something to sedate her and orders Matias to leave.
Once things quiet down again, Mysterious Person comes out of the closet to discover the bed is empty. He/She looks around and BAM! Lea attacks with a bedpan. (A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.) With her IV in tow and the drug starting to take effect, Lea struggles to catch up to Matias but he's already outside and in his truck. Mysterious Person has recovered from the bedpan attack and is stalking the victim down the narrow halls. (Seriously, is there no one else in this hospital? Lea is not being very quiet as she throws obstacles in the way of Mysterious Person.)
She reaches a door at the end of the hallway. It has a glass pane. Mysterious Person violently shoves Lea through the glass, impaling the girl on a large shard. Lea bleeds profusely. No one notices.
Show, you're gonna have to try harder than that if you want to scare me. All you did was make me nostalgic for the Eighties. Although I did enjoy the scenery of Argentina.
No comments:
Post a Comment