Appeared, The (DVD Review)

9 Jan, 2010 By: Angelique Flores

Street 1/12/10
MPI/IFC
Thriller
$19.98 DVD
Not rated.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Stars Javier Pereira, Ruth Diaz.

This is not your usual American slasher horror flick — and that’s why I like it.

Malena and Pablo are a brother and sister traveling in Argentina. Pablo finds a diary detailing murders committed 20 years prior, with Polaroid pictures of the victims. As Pablo becomes more engrossed in the diary, the killings described in it happen before his and Malena’s eyes.

Everywhere they go, they are haunted by a girl and her mother, who seem real at first. There’s an intense push and pull of trying to figure out what is real and what isn’t. Wanting to help the spirits, the brother and sister delve deeper into the mystery to find answers to what is going on.

They end up being victimized themselves by the cold killer who turns out to be someone they never suspected.

This horror film imported from Argentina at times plays more like a supernatural thriller or a Japanese horror movie. There’s even a scene where it makes fun of popular slasher movies that contain scantily clad women.

If this is what is coming out of Argentina’s film scene, I’d like to see a lot more of it.