Director: Enrique Gómez Vadillo
Year: 1991
Country: Mexico
Alternate Titles: Muerte en la playa
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Returning home to his parents, a troubled student is put off by the constant attempts by his philandering parents to set him up with other women and tries to do his own thing with his friends, but the constant pressure gets to him to the point of carrying out a psychotic rampage against others.
Review:
This was a somewhat watchable if ultimately underwhelming thriller. Among its better features is the general air of sleaze present that tends to make this one fall into a solid giallo-esque thriller. That this one works in the idea of going into the lives of the idle rich trying to sort out petty problems no one else would in a lavish mountain where they spend the entire day lounging around, having sex, and trying to go about getting their son worry about women instead of trying to make friends with men. This sets up the necessary grounding for the story at play here with the majority of everything going on about the lack of proper care from others to spur the rampage against others but also keeps the series of sexual shenanigans between both genders at a constant clip throughout here that’s oftentimes quite fun in what’s going on as the short running-time just helps enhance these factors.
There are some issues here that keep this one down. The biggest issue is the series of surprisingly obvious gay-panic in the first half between the parents over whether the son is hiding who he really is. The idea of them being so bothered by his attention to the other men around the compound and ignoring the women they try to set him up with who are doing their best to seduce and entice him even though there’s nothing back towards them which makes little sense to continue. It’s a sign of the times more than anything else with how that was treated in the culture and how it’s such a big deal that he’s the way he is, making the whole thing feel quite reactionary than anything genuinely wrong with him.
The other real flaw with this one is the seemingly melodramatic atmosphere more than an outright horror-based setup which leaves the film long on shots of people lounging around in speedos contemplating what’s going on with the son than dealing with which leaves this with so little actual genre content it barely feels like anything is happening. The body count is so low that it could’ve used more emphasis in these scenes than anything else with the constant scenes of idle ennui carrying on for the main part of the storyline so taking some of this material down in favor of more impactful stalking scenes might’ve enabled more of a general genre atmosphere. Those elements are enough to be the biggest detriments to the film.
Overview: *.5/5
A generally disappointing and problematic thriller, this one manages to focus on several problematic features to the point of not having much to hold it up over the few positives here. Those who enjoy this kind of genre fare or are curious about it will want to check it out while most others out there should heed extreme caution with it.
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