Tag: haunting

[EXPRESSO] In The Trap (2019) | Spineless Haunting

Given the horror heritage Italy has, it may sound strange how nowadays the genre it’s basically extincty here, and the few attempts made by italian productions are often better forgotten.

Still, i wanted to try my luck with this one in theathers… before the first wave of COVID-19 here killed it’s planned 2020 theathrical release. I recently found out it was eventually licensed for streaming on Amazon Prime Video, so let’s go.

Directed by Alessio Liquori, In The Trap it’s a movie sold on lies, because both the synopsis for the expected cinema release and the one on Amazon Prime Video are quite deceptive, this is about a guy being haunted by a demon that killed his sister years ago, and later possessed his fianceè.

What the summary says it’s that the guy, Philip, it’s trapped in his own house for 2 years by a sinister force that doesn’t let him escape. One day he meets the girl living in the apartment above his, Sonia, and she tries to convince him that’s all in his head.

Problem is that synopsis actually refers only to the second act, and that’s there no doubt about the nature of the entity. The plot it’s senseless anyway, because the second act doesn’t even connect with the first one until the very end, and the last act “twist” are the very definition of not committing to anything, just throwing shit into the pot to have a positive ending.

I could forgive this deception, but the movie it’s another crappy & cliched exorcism-haunting film, with shitty dialogue and it’s just unsufferably boring and tiresome. It has a decent international cast and production values, but it’s part of “trojan horsing” audiences into watching this waste of time.

Quite glad i didn’t get to see it in theathers.

[EXPRESSO] 32 Malasana Street (2020) | The Madrid Haunting

A Spanish-French coproduction, going by the international title of 32 Malasana Street, which is nearly identical to the original spanish title.

So of course it arrives in italian theathers titled “Possession – L’Appartamento Del Diavolo” (which translates to “Possession: The Devil’s Apartment”). Of course.

Originally i was planning to see it last Halloween, but i didn’t manage to because another lockdown hit cinemas here the day after this came out, and turns out it has been delayed to now. I was gonna see it due to “starvation”, since i don’t really care about the “possession-demons” subgenre, it’s definitely not my favourite type of horror movie, but i’ll give it a fair shake regardless.

The story has a nice backdrop, as in it’s set in 1976’s Madrid, just after the fall of Franco’s regime, and follows the Olmedo family moving to the capital in search of a better life. They get lucky and somehow find an apartment in the city center for a bargain. Things start getting better, but strange, unexplicable events keep happening in the house, until the youngest child, Rafael, just disappears.

Ah, yes, the old horror movie tradition of estate listings being too good to be true.

I’ll be honest, 32 Malasana Street isn’t original in any way, it uses a lot of familiar clichès (especially for “possession/haunting”flicks), and i mean a lot, the premise is as stock as it comes, but there’s some gusto and a lot of confidence to the execution that it helps the movie in rising above being the usual rubbish.

It definitely helps that the entity is quite aggressive from the get go, things happen at a good pace, the character are quite decent, quite relatable, the audio design is pretty good and there’s an expectedly “sensitive” good twist to boot.

Surprisingly decent.