Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Para Elisa (2013)

Hitting DVD and VOD September 1 thanks to Dark Sky Films comes the Spanish horror film PARA ELISA

Needing money for school Ana takes a quick job as a nanny. however after some small talk with the child's mother she finds her charge is not what she expected and that she is now in the middle of a deadly game with forces beyond her control.

Bleak black little confection is thoroughly unpleasant (I mean that as a compliment). A small scale shocker this is poisoned little confection that is really tense once it gets into gear.

I'm conflicted about this film. The problem for me is that this film runs a very breezy 75 minutes (70 if you remove the end credits). There is of course nothing wrong with the film being that short, the problem is that even running so briefly the film feels padded. The film seems to take forever to get to the good stuff. Once it gets going it races to the end, but even then it feels kind of over before it gets started. Other than some of the opening stuff nothing is bad (and that's just dull). My conflict with the film is that this has the feeling of being a really kick ass short that's been expanded. If you chopped out most of the first 15 minutes, chopped out the bits about Ana's boyfriend and girlfriend having a heart to heart and just pared it down to Ana in her situation and her boyfriend trying to find her then you'd have a tight 50 minute film that would scare the crap out of you and you'd have no reservations about it. Now you have a  film that takes a bit to get going, wanders a bit in the middle and then ends kind of too soon.

Don't get me wrong I like the film a great deal I just kind of wish it was it was tighter- I want a really good film to be a really great film.

All reservations aside I definitely recommend the film for fans of horror films since it has some really creepy moments.

As I said at the top this hits the various home video platforms September 1.

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