Red Screening – Blutige Vorstellung (2020)

Red Screening – Blutige Vorstellung: Directed by Maximiliano Contenti. With Ricardo Islas, Luciana Grasso, Franco Duran, Julieta Spinelli. It’s a soaking wet day with rain pouring down and one of the best things to do is to go seek refuge in a great old cinema. There’s just one problem: a murderer is on the loose and he also has taken refuge there.

“The action takes place in 1993 (decade of the movie Scream). Rainy night at the Montevideo Opera Cinema. A few spectators enter the large movie theater to see a Frankenstein movie at the evening performance, while the film is screened by the young daughter of the projector. But in the room there is a psychopath who will assassinate them …u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhen the matinee dies is a film-tribute to the Italian giallo and his successor, the slasher. Personally, I confess that neither of the two (especially the second) convinced me as a u0026quot;horroru0026quot; cinema. The slasher repeats the formula of a serial killer with a sharp object and gruesome murders (with a lot of gore), with generally young victims and in some sexual or drug process, a u0026quot;final girlu0026quot;, a heroine who faces the monster and a dose of self-awareness shared by your viewers. But his main problem for me is the poor psychological development of all his characters (including the murderer). While every genre film follows certain rules, in this one in particular, everything becomes (to me) very predictable.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe film by the Uruguayan Maximiliano Contenti has some successes and certain limitations that in this genre one does not know whether to attribute them to the genre or to the inexperience (for example, the performances).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAt all times there is a certain parallelism between the film being projected and what is happening in the room. After a somewhat routine and static first part, when the action is concentrated on a group of characters, the empathy works better and the interest in the plot is consolidated, interest reinforced by the increasing truculence of the scenes and a murderer who charges more entity. Some shots are very successful (with tributes to the red giallo) and the murders deserve special mention, with a very analog and real gore.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn short, a film that lovers of the genre will surely enjoy and with an effective dose of gore.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIt competed at the Mar del Plata Festival and was broadcast on cinearplay.”