Editor’s Note: These posts originally appeared starting here on the AV Club *stares off wistfully*. They are being reposted for completionist sake as this annual series continued onto the AVCAD and now here. Also, forgive the writing for I was younger and dumber and these were written to appear in comments so don’t include pictures and are far shorter and less thorough than the series is now. They have been preserved as they were.
Month of Horror: World Edition
10/12/2015 – Portugal: Blood Curse/Bad Blood (Coisa Ruim) (2006)
Directed by Tiago Guedes and Frederico Serra
Coisa Ruim is quite possibly the most obscure movie I will be viewing this month with a Wikipedia page that consistsof two lines and only the most basic information on the film and the film going by different titles depending on the location. Thankfully the only slightly more detailed (and questionably translated) Portuguese wiki informs me that this is Portugal’s first horror film. Even with a century plus old cinema tradition, Portugal is a rare European nation (especially Western European) that has never really made a splash internationally. Even within Portugal, local films are largely dwarfed by imported titles.
I really don’t have much to say about the film itself though. Technically, it’s competently made and there is nothing really positive or negative to say about the acting and I find myself struggling to point out why I just don’t care what is going on. It could be that the film is just excruciatingly slow burning and there just isn’t anything particularly interesting to keep my interest. There’s no suspense, no scares (though this is hardly a requirement for a horror movie for me), and no real satisfying ending. The film just kind of happens and disappears from the mind. I even rewatched the middle because I was convinced I missed something important, but I didn’t, it was just that unsubstantial. I’d call it a drama instead of horror, but the film feels lacking in that area too. I intellectually knew what the issues were going on onscreen, but the film may have succeeded a bit too much in its attempts to be subtle. I feel I should complement the film at least for its ambitions, but I’m still not sure what those are.
Up Next: Robert Hartford-Davis’s Corruption representing the UK.