directed by david victori
ikiru films/4 cats pictures/el pacto la pelÍcula aie/sony pictures international
Your standard-issue bigger-studio-budget supernatural horror thriller, replete with incredible scenarios and people having to make hard choices, this Spanish production doesn’t take a whole lot of chances. This tendency to play it safe is perhaps best exemplified by the ending, where for a few brief moments it seems as though the film might lurch in an unexpected direction, but ultimately relents. Ordinarily, film lore and legend would suggest such a correction was the result of test-audience feedback, but in this case it feels like what had been planned all along. The tale of a worried mother who makes a murky PACT with a shady personage known as la araña albina (“the albino spider”), it’s passable entertainment, but it runs 106 minutes, eventually delivering very little for the time investment.
why did i watch this movie?
Seriously? Because it’s called “El Pacto,” un título que me pareció ridículo en español.
should you watch this movie?
It’s not as though it’s terrible or anything, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting if I hadn’t had to read along with the subtitling, you know? A well-trodden path, this one.
highlight and low point
A bit of an interesting diversion develops maybe halfway through this picture, 
though it’s confused by some earlier hints and thus doesn’t carry as much impact as it should. The unexpected reveal in the denouement also comes across a bit subdued, though it’s fairly clever. One large problem here, however, is that the character that’s a rather major part of the plotline – hombre araña, that is – effectively disappears long before the conclusion. Important continuity issues really shouldn’t plague a flick that doesn’t come across as all that ambitious yet lasts nearly two hours.
rating from outer space: c−
simbolismo!
No, Marsha, I did NOT expect that I would be watching a morality play when I dialed up this Scottish/Irish co-production set mainly in a single location, that being a police station or whatever the hell they call it in their peculiar dialect over on the Auld Sod, distinctions further muddled by their brogue so that occasional lines of dialogue flew right past these bewildered and dB-damaged American ears. A morality play this is, however, about the souls of the guilty being claimed by You Know, in this case with the able yet hitherto unsuspecting assistance of a human female, played by The Woman
Only about 75 minutes long, this British production is basically Scream meets The Strangers, minus any meta sensibility or any tinge of humor (or humour, if you will). It does feature the very British touch of having one or more of its characters muttering and whispering his or her dialogue so that it’s virtually impossible to hear, especially if you’re watching it with doors and windows open in a neighborhood like mine. (And a sense of hearing like mine.) Also featured: very little detail. We aren’t told much about motivation, relationships, hierarchies. We do get some brief insights from which inferences may be drawn, but are essentially dropped into the middle of someone else’s story without being given a lot of background. What transpires is effectively unsettling, however – in any number of ways – and the ending is pretty intense. The story REALLY needed some new ideas of its own, though.
This lousy endeavor became an endurance test of sorts, as I could hardly wait for it to finish taking up my valuable time with its lousy acting, unnatural dialogue, odd tempo and beginner’s camerawork. This 
So close, so very close … Man, this Indonesian remake-of-sorts could have been the stuff of legend, a terrifying spectacle difficult to withstand, but it just can’t pull it off, leaving us with a rather standard malevolent-spirits Asian spookfest. That’s a shame, because al
A frankly bizarre eco-horror experiment, this Indian film contains no dialogue; characters communicate with grunts, howls and ululations, with broad gestures and what is apparently some form of sign language that I do not recognize (and which does not seem as though it could be very effective). On occasion, this choice of the filmmaker’s does interfere with one’s enjoyment of his picture, but it’s not as much of a problem as one may surmise. It remains odd and somewhat off-putting, however. WHY there’s no dialogue is implied by some setup shots: the five main characters are graduates of a special school for people with unspecified disabilities, though in this case they’re deaf-mutes. Now, wouldn’t you just know it, some tomfoolery goes horribly wrong and they must face the consequences. Which in this case are supernatural. And then there’s an extremely ironic twist. To be completely honest, this effort’s not exactly coherent, but its hallucinatory elements and creative craftsmanship combine to produce quite an effect. Slight tension arises here and there, not much in the way of fright.
As this oddly delayed sequel began – a decade after the first installment – I confess, I really, really wanted to bag on it; the onset is not promising and it appeared as though it would be a cliché-ridden parade of stock characters and situations. Credit where it’s due, however – this film delivers exactly what it’s supposed to deliver, and it does it well. Not overly saddled with any particular panache, and devoid of much in the way of creativity beyond the overall “Strangers” framework, it’s still adept at ratcheting up the tension and producing effectively understated frights. Wisely, the palette is opened up a bit from the original, as the characters are not confined to one specific place, and although some of what could be termed “character development” verges on slasher-film shtick, it remains essentially rooted in realism. It IS a bit meta, however, occasionally evoking the line productions of the post-Scream era, and perhaps a bit predictable when it morphs into a revenge picture for a while. All told, a few groans don’t detract much. No classic, but it will entertain you well enough.
SPACE RATS From Outer Space 