Directed By: Leon Klimovsky
Written By: Gabriel Burgos, Vincente Aranda and Joaquim Jorda
Cinematography: Miguel Fernandez Mila
Editor: Soledad Lopez
Cast: Nadiuska, Alberto De Mendoza, Teresa Gimpera, Emiliano Redondo, Julia Sali, Tomas Pico, Diana Polakov, Antonio Mayans, Leona Devin, Ricardo Palacios
Wealthy elites gather at a remote castle for a decadent party when nuclear catastrophe strikes. They emerge to find the surrounding townspeople irrevocably blinded by the blast, helpless and panicked. As the survivors venture into this collapsed world, they discover a shadowy faction called “The People Who Own the Dark,” whose motives remain obscure and threatening. Paranoia escalates. The castle becomes both sanctuary and trap. Trust disintegrates as survival instincts collide with moral decay.
At first, This looks like it’s going to be one kind of movie entirely. It opens with wealthy people gathered at an estate for what appears to be a very exclusive bacchanal, somewhere between EYES WIDE SHUT and SALO only with considerably less Stanley Kubrick or Pasolini and considerably more exploitation movie energy. And then, suddenly there is an apocalypse.
A bomb blast wipes out civilization, leaves the surrounding population blind, and turns this decadent little gathering into a survival story. Except the people coming after our privileged partygoers aren’t zombies or mutants. They’re ordinary human beings who have been blinded by the blast and understandably aren’t thrilled when one particularly trigger-happy member of the group starts murdering them.
From there, the movie becomes something of a low-budget DAWN OF THE DEAD with the survivors fighting off the furious townspeople while gradually discovering that their biggest threat may actually be each other.
Because nothing reveals someone’s personality quite like the possibility of dying.
The film is cynical about privilege, survival, desire and human nature, but surprisingly, it also becomes more emotionally involving than you might expect. What initially feels like a disposable exploitation picture slowly develops into a story about people you may actually care about including a rather touching and heartbreaking love story.
And yes, this is another post-apocalyptic movie where humanity apparently has to relearn the concept of basic decency. You don’t really know anyone until panic sets in, and once survival becomes the only objective, morality becomes a very negotiable concept.
The movie even manages to complicate its own characters. You might expect to cheer when these wealthy, decadent people get their comeuppance, but the longer you spend with them, the more you realize that some of them don’t necessarily deserve the fates coming their way.
It’s essentially a B-movie with ambitions of being something deeper. Sometimes it gets there. Sometimes you can practically see the seams. But it works surprisingly well, largely because it keeps moving and mercifully doesn’t overstay its welcome. It makes its points, occasionally quite bluntly, and gets out before it can completely wear out its welcome.
And then there is Nadiuska. The film is certainly not shy about making sure its female cast is easy on the eyes, but Nadiuska has a screen presence that makes you stop paying attention to the plot for a moment. She is absolutely gorgeous. A genuine screen siren and the movie gives her one of its more romantic and emotionally affecting storylines. That makes what happens to her character all the more heartbreaking.
She brings a warmth and vulnerability to the movie that helps make the ending hit harder than it probably has any right to. Among all the chaos, violence and rather obvious social commentary, her character gives the film something genuinely human to hold onto.
So, yes, the film initially promises you exploitation and then hands you something slightly different. Thankfully, it’s a pretty good trade.
I wouldn’t call this a great film, but it’s an entertaining, strange and surprisingly effective one. It has enough atmosphere, sex, violence, social commentary, survivalism and melodrama to satisfy the exploitation crowd, while occasionally reaching for something more thoughtful underneath it all.
Not exactly essential cinema, but certainly not disposable either.
Grade: B-
