7/10
two minutes to midnite
18 August 2003
It's very impressive and ambitious for Jose Mojica Marins to get this project done when he had only 15 cans of negative film stock to start with, 2 of which got stolen leaving him only 13, and not having a main actor so having to play the part himself. Most of locations were indoor sets, except for one outdoor location. Although it may seem like the lack of planning and abrupt decisions could have affected the outcome, it in fact did not. This film has some great work, starting from Jose's performance with his monologues and single take unedited continuous scenes, all the way through the very impressive set and production design and special effects. They actually manually glued glitter on the negative to get that cheap effect of halo around the spirits. I always give credit to people who are willing to get things done no matter what the budget or circumstances. Several hair raising moments make me think that this film must have been really scary for it's time 40 years ago. Overall, this is a brilliant film that is very cinematic and relies on traditional but very effective tricks of the trade to make it work.

Almost like a "the seventh seal" for horror films.
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