A woman named Marta is a in a mental institution. In flashbacks we learn what happened. She's tarot card reader and met a guy she found attractive and convinced him to let her read his cards. He agrees. Next thing you know, as she walk to her car in the garage, she's raped by this guy.
As she's released from the facility she goes to live in an apartment provided by a friend. She got rid of her psychic store and everything in it. Except for one box that the friend kept and is now in the new place. Marta completely isolates herself there. Her friend has to bring her food. She watches a couple of violent lesbians across the window who see her. One of them gets angry and starts smashing Marta's door. One day she see a man standing at the corner so she becomes completely paranoid. She covers up all the windows and installs cameras everywhere. Unfortunately these are very low-res cameras and we get to see the images from the cameras.
Marta does research and discovers that the rapist has been freed some time ago which causes her to flip out even more. Now she starts seeing a bloody creature. We've seen this creature repeatedly before in camera images crawling on the floor. Marta starts having vision of blood and a bloody woman. She discovers several holes in her apartment which lets someone from the lesbians' apartment spy on her.
We also learn that when Marta was a teen, she already had psychic powers. She went out in the woods one night and ran into the soul of a woman looking for her hair accessory. But the girl complaints that she can't see some man she wants to have visions of, her dad perhaps, I'm not sure.
Marta further discovers that in the apartment building a woman was killed previously. Finally she agrees to do a séance with her friend. But that's when the movie goes awry. There's a twist and a revelation but something else surprising happens out of the blue, but the movie ends suddenly without explaining itself at all.
Espectro is a well-done movie. Direction is confident, cinematography is excellent. This movie avoids the typical cliché of setting it in complete darkness and lights going out, rain, and the like that every horror movie can't do without. At the same time it's a bit gimmicky too, with jarring editing, flashing lights, and loud sophisticated sounds and effects. Movies about a paranoid person going nuts are usually lousy, but Paz Vega makes it work. Even though she looks rather malnourished and uncharacteristically doesn't show any skin, she makes this movie watchable. The pace is just a tad bit too slow and there are too many repeated scenes of camera images showing nothing. While the twist and revelation is neat, the movie ends on such a lame note without bothering to bring things together and raising a bunch of questions that only it could have answered. I do want to rate this movie better, but I have a hard time given the disappointing ending.
As she's released from the facility she goes to live in an apartment provided by a friend. She got rid of her psychic store and everything in it. Except for one box that the friend kept and is now in the new place. Marta completely isolates herself there. Her friend has to bring her food. She watches a couple of violent lesbians across the window who see her. One of them gets angry and starts smashing Marta's door. One day she see a man standing at the corner so she becomes completely paranoid. She covers up all the windows and installs cameras everywhere. Unfortunately these are very low-res cameras and we get to see the images from the cameras.
Marta does research and discovers that the rapist has been freed some time ago which causes her to flip out even more. Now she starts seeing a bloody creature. We've seen this creature repeatedly before in camera images crawling on the floor. Marta starts having vision of blood and a bloody woman. She discovers several holes in her apartment which lets someone from the lesbians' apartment spy on her.
We also learn that when Marta was a teen, she already had psychic powers. She went out in the woods one night and ran into the soul of a woman looking for her hair accessory. But the girl complaints that she can't see some man she wants to have visions of, her dad perhaps, I'm not sure.
Marta further discovers that in the apartment building a woman was killed previously. Finally she agrees to do a séance with her friend. But that's when the movie goes awry. There's a twist and a revelation but something else surprising happens out of the blue, but the movie ends suddenly without explaining itself at all.
Espectro is a well-done movie. Direction is confident, cinematography is excellent. This movie avoids the typical cliché of setting it in complete darkness and lights going out, rain, and the like that every horror movie can't do without. At the same time it's a bit gimmicky too, with jarring editing, flashing lights, and loud sophisticated sounds and effects. Movies about a paranoid person going nuts are usually lousy, but Paz Vega makes it work. Even though she looks rather malnourished and uncharacteristically doesn't show any skin, she makes this movie watchable. The pace is just a tad bit too slow and there are too many repeated scenes of camera images showing nothing. While the twist and revelation is neat, the movie ends on such a lame note without bothering to bring things together and raising a bunch of questions that only it could have answered. I do want to rate this movie better, but I have a hard time given the disappointing ending.
