Fidel Gastro

The Platform (Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, 2019)

Occasionally, a film which has been on my radar winds up disappearing like Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Netflix's The Platform (2019), or, if we want to call it by its original Spanish title, El hoyo is one such film. Helmed by a first time director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, The Plaform piqued my interest largely due to it being a dystopian sci-fi thriller where residents of the Vertical Self-Management Centre, a vast prison tower nicknamed The Pit, serve a given period in order to achieve their freedom and improved status in the outside world. The inmates are allowed one object while confined in The Pit, which can be anything from a weapon to a violin. Each day, these individuals are fed via a magically descending concrete platform laden with food. The catch being, it's the only meal of the day and those on the highest levels can gorge on as much food as they want once the descending platform spends a short limited time on their level. Thus, the higher-ups can feast like kings, while the lesser fortunate, further down, might face the very real possibility of starving to death. Hence, The Platform is an exploration of classicism, greed and the true test of human solidarity. A further twist to this situation is the inmates being reassigned to a random level at the start of each month. 

Frank Zappa lookalike Goreng (Iván Massagué) is the latest inmate. Armed with a copy of Cervantes's novel Don Quixote, it's not long before he's forced to learn the basic rule of survival inside the megastructure: Eat to survive! Goreng's cellmate, Trimigasi (Zorion Eguileor), a short and stocky elderly man with a misanthropic outlook on life, is wondering how long his new cellmate will last.Trimigasi is also pleased that he's on Level 48 in the complex; a relatively high level where food is more likely to be available from the upper level. More chance of leftovers. The disparity between the two individuals could never be more different; including the reasons for their admittance in The Pit. Goreng volunteered to be in their for an accredited diploma, while it was either a one year stint in the hell hole or forever in a psychiatric hospital for throwing a TV out of his window and accidentally murdering someone.

Goreng comes with the solution that it would be fairer to ration the food. An amused Trimigasi asks him, if he's a communist. Goreng attempts to persuade the higher ups, unsurprisingly, he's ridiculed. Similarly, his plea is also rejected by those below him. It's not helped when the odious Trimigasi urinates on the lower level after they complain about no wine being left, either. The elderly cellmate's logic being they would have done the same, if the tables were turned.

Trimigasi: The people below us are below us.

Goreng: Next month they might be above us. 

Trimigasi: Yes, and they'll piss on us. The bastards.

Goreng also has his first encounter with the beautiful Miharu (Alexandra Masangkay), a mute and battle-scarred woman, who rides the platform in the desperate hope of finding her child in the lower depths of the pit. Goreng is shocked by the notion of a child even being in the concrete hellhole. And yet, as Goreng's first month rolls by, he adapts to his environment; becoming more comfortable with eating from the platform and forming a close bond with Trimigasi. The scenes where he reads to his elderly cellmate and they exercise together for their mental and physical healths, are genuinely endearing.

Our cellmates' relationship takes a dramatic turn once the sleeping gas wears off and Goreng wakes up tied and gagged to his bed by Trimigasi. It's the start of a new month, and the pair are now way down the hole on Level 171. Starvation is very real. Trimigasi has been in this position before and survived it by resorting to cannibalism. The elderly man proposes a dark and twisted offer to his cellmate: he'll carve strips of Goreng's flesh to feed the both of them. In the midsts of his leg being cut up by the old cannibal, he's saved by Miharu and Trimigasi is subsequently killed by Goreng. Thus, the wannabe revolutionary himself turns to cannibalism in order to the rest of the month in the Pit. Having eaten human flesh, the act has made Goreng see visions of Trimigasi; haunting him from beyond the grave.

Another month, another twist of fate. Goreng is now on Level 33, a far more survivable part of the Pit. He's greeted by Ramses II, a sausage dog owned by a woman named Imoguiri (Antonia San Juan), the very same admittance officer who interviewed him for his application for the Vertical Self-Management Centre. Having lost her fight with cancer, the new inmate has decided to spend her final weeks learning of what her work has led to. She quickly learns how naïve she has been and makes similar pleas for solidarity and rationing to the other levels, echoing Goreng's first month. But it hits much harder for Imoguiri being a former employee for this diabolical construction. She has blood on her hands. How many have died here? Could her employers really have put a child in this ungodly construct? When the month passes, Goreng discovers he's on Level 202. Imoguiri has taken her own life. Once again, Goreng must eat human flesh. Another vision forever accompanying our protagonist. Imoguiri and Trimigasi now serving as our protagonist's good versus bad conscience.

Ascending to a more privileged Level 6 the following month, Goreng has a plan. Estimating there must be around 250 levels, our protagonist persuades his latest cellmate, Baharat (Emilio Buale), a religious man who literally gets shitted on by the higher-ups during an escape attempt, to descend to the lower levels with him in order to feed the prisoners below. They will demand the inmates on the first fifty levels to go without food for the day and use physical force if necessary to enforce it. During their decent, they encounter a scholar who suggests a message must also be sent to the hand that feeds them on Level 0; an untouched dish. The panna cotta is the message. 

The slow descent to the lower levels is easily the piece de resistance of The Platform. Gaztelu-Urrutia takes obvious inspiration from Dante's Inferno. The two cellmates traversing down on the magical concrete slab makes for compelling viewing. You're never sure what they expect. On one level you see charred remains of two people, on another two cellmates in a rubber pool, who turn out to be the film's story writers. A further twist is the platform going even further down than Goreng's estimation. It turns out out to be 333 levels. Two cellmates on each level. It couldn't be more clear what the Pit represents.

Gaztelu-Urrutia's commentary on capitalism and classism is about as subtle as being punched in the face by Frank Castle. Hardly, the first film with these criticisms, let alone the only that year. Bong Joon Ho's critically acclaimed Parasite (2019) was also released at the time. However, the South Korean black comedy, is a far more stylish and nuanced offering, whereas The Platform is ugly and austere. Incidentally, The Platform has more in common with Bong Joon Ho's dystopian sci-fi thriller Snowpiercer (2013), but the advantage of Tilda Swinton and Chris Evans not being in it. Another obvious influence is Vincenzo Natali's proto-Saw film Cube (1997) in its concept. Each of  The Platform's characters seem to represent archetypes in the dog eat dog world of the capitalist hierarchy: Trimigasi completely capable of committing evil to get to the top, while Imoguiri being blissfully unaware of her part in the brutal system she's contributed to until it's too late. Lastly, Goreng representing the socialist revolutionary striving for solidarity resorting to violence to enforce it after all pleasantries fail. The viewer never gets to see who runs the show, only a grim looking maître d' and cooks meticulously preparing the banquet of incredible food which is never enough to feed everyone.

The only real gripe is the ambiguous ending that I won't spoil. Considering how openly blunt the film's messaging has been, why opt for a cop out ending that's so intentionally vague? A notable sore point observed from other reviewers. Regardless, this wasn't enough to ruin my overall impression of the film. The many positives outweighed those final moments.

The Platform is a horrifying film; brutal, nihilistic and hard to recommend to any dog lovers. However, it's the film's sci-fi concept which is the most extreme aspect. The brutalist construct boxing everyone into various levels as an allegory to the class system. I absolutely loved this film so much, I immediately hunted checked out Gaztelu-Urrutia's two other subsequent efforts. Alas, both The Platform 2 (2024) and Rich Flu (2024 /25) are significant downgrades and even more infested with shameless Marxist propaganda than your kid's university. The latter film being utterly soporific despite a ridiculous premise of a virus which only targets the wealthy. In any case, at least comrade Gaztelu-Urrutia has one truly great film under his belt, making it a crying shame it's rotting on Netflix and not available on any English friendly physical format release.

Up to Snuff

Tesis (Alejandro Amenábar, 1996)

Video cassettes spawned a new way in how we watched films. Gone was the ritualistic process of having to find out what the local screenings were in advance; along with the potential of a film being ruined by a bunch of annoying twats sat in the auditorium. Video brought convenience to the masses. The ability to pause and rewind a specific scene gave us the ability to analyse with more scrutiny. It also opened a proverbial pandora's box. Mature content, bereft of a video classification, became more accessible to minors with lax parents; including theatrically rejected titles finding a new lease of life on video cassette. It would lead to the infamous Video Nasty hysteria. More importantly, it would usher in a new generation of extreme horror aficionados as well as a general desensitisation as whole in how society sees violence. This is the main backbone to Alejandro Amenábar debut thriller Tesis (AKA Thesis, 1996).

Ángela Márquez (Ana Torrent), a student at the Complutense University of Madrid, is researching the effects of audiovisual violence upon society for her thesis. She's introduced in Amenábar's film onboard a stationary train. Along with her fellow passengers, she's made to alight from the transport, as a person had thrown themselves in front of the tracks. With morbid curiosity, she scrambles to get a peak at the gory mess. An official guides her away from the gruesome sight. Ángela's ghoulish interest is also evident when she asks her tutor, Professor Figueroa (Miguel Picazo), to lend her some dodgy tapes from the university's video archives; for research purposes, of course. This begs the question: what kind of reputable educational establishment would have morally reprehensible content on its shelves? Ángela also enlists the help of weirdo student Chema (Fele Martinez), a loner known for having an appetite for extreme horror and pornographic films. 

The mystery unfolds once Ángela's professor stumbles upon a mysterious iron door in the archives and discovers a room with video tapes. Figueroa comes to an unfortunate end, when Ángela finds him dead in the screening room; apparently while watching the tape he retrieved from the archives. Whether or not foul play was at hand, remains ambiguous. However, given the professor's obese state and constant respiratory wheezing, he could have just as well popped his clogs whilst watching Mary Poppins (1964). Our protagonist grabs the tape and rushes back home, without reporting the professor's death to anyone.

Ángela attempts to watch the tape at home, but is too afraid of whatever horrors she will see. Instead, our protagonist records its sounds onto an audio cassette. Listening on her walkman, the chilling sounds of a girl being tortured are too much for her. Therefore, it's off to Chema's fly-tip of a hovel to get him to watch it and describe what's occurring on-screen while her back is turned. Whist her back is turned and Chema's grisly intrigue, the pair stumble upon the revelation that it's an actual snuff tape. To drive it closer to home, Chema recognises the victim as a former university student who disappeared a couple of years prior. Thus, much like that all too familiar giallo trope, Ángela and Chema become unwitting amateur sleuths in a film laden with curveballs and misdirections to sate fans of Hitchcock style thrillers and Italian gialli.

Apart from its dark plot, heightened tensions and palpable suspense, what really drives Tesis forward is how well written the characters are. Ángela and Chema are like oil and water. At first, our heroine is like a moth to a flame in her morbid curiosity. She can barely watch the horrors which draw her, but she gradually is able to face it once she spends more time with Chema. A similar transformation happens to her sidekick. He becomes much warmer to Ángela, once she realised, much of his obnoxiousness and edge lord behaviour is more or less a personal shield in dealing with the outside world. Ought to add, despite living in absolute filth, Chema is right up there Mark Petrie, Tommy Jarvis and Charley Brewster as great fictional horror aficionados. Chema unashamedly wearing a Cannibal Holocaust (1980) T-shirt to university and adorning posters of Shocker (1989) and Alien 3 (1992) in his grotty bathroom speak volumes to me. A stark contrast to Ángela's solitary film poster in her bedroom of My Own Private Idaho (1991). Which has me cheering for him to not to die, solve the mystery and get the girl, even if he does give off school shooter vibes.

 

Bad boy Bosco Herranz (Eduardo Noriega) enters the fray as another integral character in the film. He's spotted by Ángela operating the same model video camera linked with the recording of the snuff film. Equally damning, is his association with the victim from the tape. Looking like Spain's answer to Paul Walker (Pablo Caminante, if you will), Bozco has Ángela both swooning and terrified of him. A key sequence reveals Ángela's mental being, as she dreams of having sex with Bozco, before he stabs her. Worth mentioning, both Ángela's mother and sister are smitten when Bozco charms his way into their house. The complete chad to Chema's virgin. 

Despite the few instances which defy logic (the secret area behind the metallic door in the university's video archives, being the obvious one), a night club playing the most atrocious euro techno music, and being around fifteen minutes too long, there's a lot I like about Alejandro Amenábar's thriller. Abundant plot twists and a number of red herrings, make it constantly engaging. It's all the more impressive once you realise this is incredibly low budget, written and helmed by a twenty three year old film graduate shooting at his university, and more importantly, more enjoyable than Mute Witness (1995) and 8mm (1999), two other Hitchcockian style thrillers from around that era, also themed around snuff films.

Tesis swept up all the major Goya awards (Spain's answer to the Oscars) in 1997. Alejandro Amenábar would follow-up its success with his science fiction drama Open Your Eyes (1997). He would cast both Martinez and Noriega again, alongside the gorgeous Penelope Cruz. It would get the American remake treatment, retitled to Vanilla Sky (2001) and starring action movie midget Tom Cruise. The remake would also feature Penelope Cruz reprising her role. Amenábar would also deliver The Others (2001), a fantastic supernatural chiller with Cruise's other half at the time, Nicole Kidman. No idea what Amenábar is churning out today, but I can confidently claim, he came out of the gate running with his impressive talent as both a writer and director. Tesis is superb mystery thriller.

Here's a currently working YouTube link of Tesis. Not sure how long it will remain, though,

Coffee Break

Can definitely see Caye Casas' The Coffee Table (2022/2024) being nominated as one of the most disturbing films this year.

Not going to spoil, or link any trailers and clips, as it's best going in completely blind. However, here's the film synopsis:

Jesus and María are a couple going through a difficult time in their relationship. Nevertheless, they have just become parents. To shape their new life, they decide to buy a new coffee table. A decision that will change their existence.

I will add that its writers must be twisted individuals for even conceiving such a premise, let alone make such a deeply uncomfortable comedy out of it.

Currently available on Shudder.

Golden Moulder-Brown

The House that Screamed (Trailer)

Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, 1969

Can finally tick off Narciso Ibáñez Serrador's 1969 film, The House that Screamed (AKA La Residencia) off my watch list. Would have been much sooner if I was able to watch it without some awful VHS rip of it on the net, or cop it without having to pay an extortionate amount for a copy to grey importers. In any case, it's a great film that warms my cockles with all its sumptuous gothic splendour, and certainly worth going over it in more detail at a later date.

Interesting observation about it was John Moulder-Brown kicked off a winning streak thanks to Serrador's film and followed it up with Deep End (1970) and Vampire Circus (1972); all before kissing goodbye to his teenage years. Not quite as impressive as Corey Feldman's phenomenal run in the eighties, but it's still a tremendous achievement, in my opinion.

Horror Europa with Mark Gatiss

John Das, 2012

First caught wind of The House that Screamed in the excellent documentary, Horror Europa with Mark Gatiss, which first aired on TV back in 2012. It was the only film fetaured in it which I hadn't seen until now. Since it was discussed with equal reverance as other great European horror classics like Eyes Without a Face (1960), Black Sabbath (1963), and Daughters of Darkness (1971), the film obviously made it onto my radar.

Serrador helmed what I personally consider the best horror film to come from Spain, Who Could Kill A Child (1976). Ironically, much like my favourite film from Australia, Wake in Fright (1971), it too featured Brits for its main cast.

Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express

Horror Express (Eugenio Martin, 1972)

Considering how much of a washout the majority of  last month's film were, it was an utmost necessity for this blog to seek out the comfort blanket of the safe and familiar. Eugenio Martin's 1972 Spanish monster romp, Horror Express is the cinematic equivalent of chicken soup for the soul; or sopa de pollo for the sake of the inclined.

Loosely based on Joseph Campbell's 1938 science fiction novella, Who Goes There? Horror Express shares common DNA with both Christian Nyby's The Thing From Another World (1951) and John Carpenter's remake, The Thing (1982). Actually, both Martin and Carpenter's films are much closer to the creature's literal depicition in certain respects. Christopher Lee's paleontologist character, with the bad ass name of Alexander Saxton, discovers the frozen remains of what's presumably the missing link. It's being transported in a crate, en route to Moscow via the Trans-Siberian Express. Things don't exactly go smoothly however, as while at the train station a thief attempting to rob the crate winds up dead on the platform with hemorrhaged blood exiting his orifices (ooh, er missus!) and his eyes missing  pupils. The body count escalates even further once the train departs to Moscow. Hilariously, in typical British aristocratic swagger, Lee isn't too bothered that his scientific discovery of the century might be behind the deaths of a baggage man and a theif; they're only common riff-raff, innit? Set in the early twentieth century, Horror Express has the air of Hammer and Amicus about it which instantly has me attached to it like an intravenous drip.

The casting choices are phenomenally good, and it goes without saying that having both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing; for me - the illest acting combo of all time, automatically give the film a sense of prestige, regardless of how ridiculous events might get. Really ought to take a brief detour here and add that The Cush was in a raw state since his wife had recently passed away at the time. This in turn made him want to pull out of the film which had already begun shooting a week earlier. Lee being a true friend managed to persuade him to stay on and give him a necessary positive distraction during his time of grief. The result is some of the best on-screen chemistry exhibited between the pair of legendary actors and one of those rare times where they're working together as a team as opposed to being bitter enemies The rest of the cast aren't slouches either, as they're a recognisable bunch of Euro genre veterans littered throughout the film; including Helga Liné, George Rigaud, Julio Peña and Silvia Tortosa as the flirty Polish countess trying it on with Lee (get in there!). Big fan of Alberto de Mendoza as the Rasputin-style mad monk, Father Pujardov. If that's not enough then the icing on the cake is undoubtedly Telly Savalas memorably ab-libbing his way as Captain Kazan, a maniacal cossack leader introduced in the film's third act. 

What's amazing about Horror Express is how it escalates into such a grand scale of spectacle. It's a gothic adventure which features: a creature that drains brains, slasher style set-ups; Quatermass worthy  science fiction; and a psionically controlled army of zombies. All of this and the fate of the entire human race being fought on an old fashioned steam train hurtling through the Russian frozen wastes. Bizarrely, the with all those factors, the films doesn't go off the rails like one would presume. It works, because the film is delivered with such earnest passion from the cast and crew, that it's too enthralling to remain completely cynical. It also helps that both Cushing and Lee are such veritable masters in their craft at churning the most outlandish and fantastical scenarios, including schlocky dialogue, into convincing realisim; making it all the more a rollicking adventure. They're also in charge of the levity quota; when a policeman accuses that either Lee and Cushing could be the deadly creature, The Cush responds with the best line in the film, "Murder? We're British, you know!". Cut! Print! Classic!

Mark this one up as one of those long lost gems wallowing in public domain hell that rarely gets the props it deserves. Way too good to be some best kept secret by aging horror film boomers; and way too ancient to be appreciated by youngsters with the inability to watch any film over a few years old. A real shame then.

In the same year, Eugenio Martin helmed Pancho Villa (1972) with Telly Savalas playing the titular Mexican revolutionary. Other than using the same model train set featured in Horror Express, the film doesn't interest me in the slightest; what does though, is another Brit abroad themed Spanish horror helmed by Martin in the following year, A Candle For the Devil (1973). That film starred cult British actress Judy Geeson; in what I personally consider, a very prolific career streak at the time. A Candle For the Devil takes the template of Horror Express' Father Pujardov and his religious fanaticism into very engrossing type chiller.

Dada Debaser Bonus:

Mind blown that John Cacavas, the film's soundtrack composer, was an American and not a Spanish bloke like I originally thought. Other than composing that highly catchy eerie whistle motif which played a big part in the film (and subsequently made it onto my Bork Funk Soundtracks list), he was also a friend of Telly Savalas. Mind blown even further that he produced Savalas' debut album, This is Telly Savalas... kicking off his crooner singing phase. Considering we've had a Peter Cushing rave song and a ninety-something Christopher Lee pumping out metal music, I'm not too fussed over actors' musical careers; unless it's J Lo and her beat jackin' of The Beatnuts - she can burn for that travesty. Not masochistic enough to bother checking Telly's music out, but I do find it freaking hilarious that the album cover is a mugshot of him in his cossack uniform from Horror Express while brandishing a gun and a cigarillo, especially since my lasting memory of him in the film is his horrific demise.