A Spanish movie that packs quite a punch.
The plot:
Hector is an ordinary man. He lives in an ordinary house with his ordinary wife. They have sex in ordinary ways and complain about things in an ordinary manner.
One day, he spies something in the woods behind his house: a young woman, hoisting up her t-shirt to reveal pert, bare breasts. He looks away as his wife wanders by and, when he looks back, the girl is gone.
Understandably intrigued, Hector goes to investigate, only to find her, naked, dead.
Panicked, he goes to flee, when a man wearing bandages covered in blood to hide his face attacks, stabbing Hector with scissors.
A pursuit ensues, which ultimately leads to Hector clambering into a strange machine, on the insistence of a man who appears to be helping him escape the bandaged maniac. The machine closes and opens again, seemingly instantaneously, but Hector has in fact travelled back in time by just a few hours.
So now there's two of him.
Or is that three?
Just how many Hector's are there?
It's gripping stuff.
A movie that plays with viewer's expectations, starting out in the most mundane manner and gradually escalating the sense of lunacy and mania the main character is feeling, the viewer tagging along for the ride.
Smartly scripted, this deftly deals with issues of causality by actually making them essential plot points.
Having something of a soft spot for sci-fi movies that play out in conventional surroundings, this certainly ticked the right boxes down here at Smell the Cult HQ.
Not seen many Spanish movies, but those I have tend to be of a decent standard, and this is no exception.
Good quality brain fodder, this.
4 out of 10
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