I was ready for an intense ride from filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia, whose reputation suggests there’s no moral line he’s afraid to cross. The opening scene follows a cat who begins chewing the fingers off a rotting corpse. This boundary/button pushing isn’t typical for the film. Most of it is a black comedy about desperate building tenants in pursuit of a huge amount of cash and the realtor who discovers it by happenstance. Her problem is in getting the money out of the building knowing that she’s likely to be murdered by the residents before she makes it to the front door.
This is a horror film as black comedy. It features stabbings, head trauma and the best elevator decapitation I’ve seen outside of Total Recall. While Iglesia doesn’t shy away from the violence, he doesn’t seek to film it in loving close-up either, and the scenes are played like early Almodovar or Delicatessen.
This was my first Álex de la Iglesia. Returning to it 8 films later, it’s funnier and more vicious than I remembered. The script is a strong enough mix of screwball and violence with a juicy central female role, I’m surprised it hasn’t been remade by several other countries. An experience in the mold of Death Becomes Her, and better constructed.
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