Atrocious

Atrocious

2010

Drama (Horror, Thriller, Foreign)

Rated: R

Running Time: 75 minutes

Starring: Cristian Valencia, Clara Morelada

Directed By: Fernando Barredo Luna

Rating: 0 out of 10

Outline

A family is brutally murdered, and this details the five days preceding their demise.

Review

I was a fan of The Blair Witch Project, and I am a fan of found footage movies but the style has gotten old, very fast. Sometimes I wish Blair Witch was never made because anyone with a camera thinks they can make a horror movie these days. So, I am just guessing, but this is how I envisioned how this movie came about. The producer or director found a 50 dollar bill on the road and had access to a couple of video cameras. They then spent a night writing the script, and cast a couple of their buddies to act in it and voila, you have this movie. Atrocious is the story of the Quintanilla family, who were found murdered at their country home. The film details the last 5 days leading up to their grisly murders.

I know horror purists will say lighten up on my judgment of this film but I HATED everything about it. Hate might even be too lenient a word for my liking. The film gets underway and by underway I mean the camera is on. We are introduced to the Quintanilla family as they make their way to their country estate. Two of the children (Cristian and July) have decided to make a film about a local legend. That legend details the disappearance of the Girl in the Garraf woods. The first 50 minutes of this film basically shows the two kids walking around the expansive property filming random things. They film all around the inside of the house. They film in the basement. They film on the outside property. Lastly, they film in an expansive hedge maze that is neighboring the property. All this filming will put most viewers to sleep. There are inexplicable scenes of Cristian getting lost and narrating his entire adventure. There are exhausting scenes of the kids walking around in the maze. Finally, there is too much talking about things unrelated to the movie that they are supposed to be shooting. There is one scene where they interview a local man about the Legend of Garraf woods but that is about it, which is puzzling. The film has the perfect setting for frights and carnage, but can never pull the trigger. The house is older and sparsely furnished, but it is underutilized. The basement is cramped and creepy, but it is underutilized. The hedge maze is claustrophobic and large, but it is underutilized. All these great areas for horror that the director fails to derive any fear from.

The acting was poor, but no one could have saved this movie. Cristian is played by Cristian Valencia and his performance was spotty. When he wasn’t yelling at July for various things, he was breathing heavily into the microphone on the camera. The breathing is very distracting and makes you want to mute the film on numerous occasions. His sister July is played by Clara Moraleda, and she does little better. Her delivery is unbelievable in a number of spots and her screams are ear drum shattering. Long after most people would have given up, July keeps screaming and screaming. Her performance was infuriating when she was under duress in this film. The two of them also suffer from what is known as MIS (Movie Idiot Syndrome.) They explore the hedge maze after they think they see someone in it, they explore it after they see murdered animals in it, and they explore it after they get lost in it. All of that is happening and they don’t tell anyone about what’s going on. To be fair, Valencia and Moraleda do seem comfortable during the down time scenes (WHICH IS THE WHOLE MOVIE) and do come off as believable siblings. At this point though, you could really care less.

Some people will say this movie is the epitome of a slow burn, I thought it snuffed itself out around the 30 minute mark. Every scene seems to drag on for 2 to 8 minutes longer than necessary. A perfect example of this is a nighttime scene in the hedge maze that carries on for like 8 minutes. It works for the first 2 minutes; you are irritated by minute 5, and then are pissed off by minute 8. The whole movie is shot this way. The camera work is a nauseating mess, and it looks like the camera man is giving a Dutch Rudder while trying to film. The end is a twist that no one will care about, and it leaves the viewer a little confused as to what some of the footage was all about. Doors opening on their own accord, unseen hands grabbing at them from the dark, and malfunctioning cameras are all haphazardly thrown into this film without thought or care. In conclusion, this movie is ATROCIOUS! No frights, no scares, no ingenuity, only boredom. The setting is the only positive thing and that is it.

  

Director and writer Fernando Barreda Luna, is clearly a student of horror so it is puzzling as why this movie was so bad. He uses elements of Blair Witch, REC, the Shining, and many other found footage films, but it comes off as cheap and amateurish. He tries to build the tension but always passes the threshold of what could be considered scary and he enters into the territory of asinine. The camera work is poor, the casting is poor, the story is poor, and the direction is poor. If he had more money could this have


worked? Maybe, but this movie never worked on any level for me.

I cannot recommend this movie and it easily takes a spot on my top hundred worst movie list.

T Factor + If you like found footage movies than this could score higher on the rating scale.

T Factor – None

If you liked this movie reel recommendations: Grave Encounters, V/H/S