Atrocious

Fernando Barreda Luna’s ‘found footage’ shocker looks like a home movie, which suits its lo-fi aesthetic but also foregrounds its micro-budget and impoverished ideas. Shot in a decaying Catalan country house, this purports to be a police-edited version of the video footage shot by siblings Cristian and July, while holidaying there with their parents.

Although spooked by tales of the ghostly Melinda, who is said to haunt the nearby Garraf woods, the two teenagers roam the maze at night, like dumb characters in a bad horror movie. The Stygian shaky-cam footage is neither suspenseful nor illuminating. Then, suddenly, without warning, the invented Melinda myth is abruptly and arbitrarily jettisoned in favour of something even more contrived. Clearly designed as a ‘calling card’ movie, to be shown at the horror film festival held in nearby Sitges, this is the unacceptable face of amateurish fanboy filmmaking. On the plus side, it’s only 74 minutes long.