Census Bloodbath: I Am In Spain, Both With And Without The S

Note: The copy I was able to find of this Spanish-language movie did have subtitles, but they were extremely literal translations that frequently misunderstood homophones such as "un hombre" and "un nombre," so they were practically useless. I do know enough Spanish to get by, but Mexican Spanish, not Spain Spanish. So take my review with a grain of salt, if you're curious about this movie. But you really shouldn't be. PS: Check out one of my favorite mistranslations in the "Champion Dialogue" section.

Year:
1985
Director:
Carlos Aured
Cast:
Adriana Vega, Sara Mora, José Luis Alexandre
Run Time:
1 hour 23 minutes

Plot: Atrapados en el miedo (also known by the far inferior English-language title Caught in Fear) follows two couples: the more established (and thus hornier) Antonio (José Luis Alexandre) and Ana (Sara Mora) alongside the newly-set-up José (Joaquín Navarro) and Laura (Adriana Vega), who is Ana's sister. They hang out for the weekend in an isolated manor home that just so happens to be quite close to the psychiatric hospital from which a killer known as el Loco (Luis Canovas) has just escaped.

Analysis: Atrapados en el miedo has absolutely glorious opening credits. And I'm not even trying to damn the movie with faint praise, though admittedly there isn't much more praise coming its way. The credits are meant to evoke dripping blood, I think, but they have this red-brown-black dripping aesthetic that makes them seem more like a lava lamp. Anyway, whatever is going on, the opening is jaunty and lively in a way that had me feeling a certain amount of goodwill toward the movie right away.

Reader, the movie eventually drained every last ounce of said goodwill. I haven't seen director Carlos Aured's Spanish giallo movie Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll (aka The House of Psychotic Women) from 11 years earlier, but that enjoys a certain reputation that this movie completely fails to live up to.

I mean, sure, there are a few brutal moments scattered throughout. For instance, the unnamed lesbian who tries to seduce her friend in the opening scene gets her neck snapped for her troubles, and that foley gives a mean crunch. It's hard to deliver an impactful kill when you don't have the budget for gore, but that scene delivers. However, the exploitative angle of the opening scene (this isn't the first Spanish-language movie I've seen to start with some lesbian sex-murders, and it won't be the last) is instantly dropped in favor of spending time with couples who love talking about sex way more than actually doing it.

If the filmmakers intended on deriving terror from evoking the feeling of being a fifth wheel on a vacation with two of the most annoying couples in the world, then they accomplished their goal, one hundred percent. And we don't even get to see them die! Spoiler alert, I guess. That's right, not a single one of the four main characters I listed in the plot synopsis is dead by the end of the movie. We are forced to watch them laboriously make grocery lists, go to and from town, and trade boring stories, and they don't even have the decency to perish for our amusement!

The killer (whose face is kept unseen until one late scene where it just randomly isn't) kinda just wanders around the outside of the house, dicking around. He frightens the gals once or twice, and he has a habit of flexing his thumbs like he's just itching to strangle, which is a unique little gimmick. But he has no backstory, no personality, and really no M.O. because he only kills a few people on the outskirts of the narrative. Forget attempted murder, this whole movie is an attempted slasher.

There's just enough going on in the movie that it almost feels legit for the first act and a half, but eventually it becomes so tedious that when one of the characters goes into a fugue state out of fear, I was terribly envious of her ability to dissociate.

Killer: El Loco (Luis Canovas)

Final Girl: Laura (Adriana Vega) feat. everyone else

Best Kill: The killer is eventually defeated by being run over with the car. And run over again. And again. They're just doing donuts to repeatedly smush the guy. It's excellent.

Sign of the Times: I mean, it's not like this brand isn't still around, but something about the sign in the background telling us to "Beba Fanta" (aka "drink Fanta") really felt like a perfectly 1980's sight to behold.

Scariest Moment: The shadow of el Loco's head rises up the stairs toward where Laura and Ana are standing.

Weirdest Moment: There's a cuckoo clock jump scare.

Champion Dialogue: “The sailboat is completely virgin virgin."

Body Count: 4

1. Mónica is choked with a tree branch.
2. Lesbian has her neck snapped.
3. La Sobrina Marcela is strangled.
4. El Loco is done donuts upon.

TL;DR: Atrapados en el miedo isn't exactly as bad as a slasher can get, but it makes an absolute hash of the format nevertheless.

Rating: 3/10

Word Count: 845