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Editorial Reviews
In April of 2010, Spanish police reported the discovery of 37 hours of recorded evidence that shed new light on a gruesome murder investigation. The found footage documents a family of five spending their holidays at their summerhouse, where brother-and sister Cristian and July Quintanilla pass the time investigating a terrifying local urban legend. As their investigation intensifies, strange occurrences in and around the house escalate rapidly, before culminating in unspeakable atrocities.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Shot in the "The Blair Witch Project"-like first-person POV style, "Atrocious" centers on the Quintanilla family of five, whose horrifying experiences at their summer house in Sitges are recorded in handheld video cameras. There is one good idea in "Atrocious," but it is not enough to save this Spanish low-budget film from being another forgettable entry in the overcrowded horror subgenre of found-footage thriller.
Christian and July, a brother and sister making a web show about urban legends, investigate a local legend of a ghost girl named Melinda, while staying at the family's country house. What follows is a series of familiar horror devices including a barking dog and a disused well, except the final fifteen minutes.
The 75-minute film has several creepy moments, to be sure, but they are few and far between. Writer and director Fernando Barreda Luna knows how to enhance suspense, but achieved only limited success, as the film spends too much time trying to set up the atmosphere. The film's first half includes scenes of the protagonist wandering in the deserted hedge labyrinth and woods, which are disorienting at first, but then gets boring.
Filmmakers of "Atrocious" seem to rely too much on the idea I mentioned above, a genre-bending attempt that might have worked as a short film. I will not disclose what it is here. I only add that being stretched beyond its limit, this idea does not have enough substance to stand as a feature film, which "Atrocious" strives to be.
Christian and July, a brother and sister making a web show about urban legends, investigate a local legend of a ghost girl named Melinda, while staying at the family's country house. What follows is a series of familiar horror devices including a barking dog and a disused well, except the final fifteen minutes.
The 75-minute film has several creepy moments, to be sure, but they are few and far between. Writer and director Fernando Barreda Luna knows how to enhance suspense, but achieved only limited success, as the film spends too much time trying to set up the atmosphere. The film's first half includes scenes of the protagonist wandering in the deserted hedge labyrinth and woods, which are disorienting at first, but then gets boring.
Filmmakers of "Atrocious" seem to rely too much on the idea I mentioned above, a genre-bending attempt that might have worked as a short film. I will not disclose what it is here. I only add that being stretched beyond its limit, this idea does not have enough substance to stand as a feature film, which "Atrocious" strives to be.
10 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Shot in a 'Blair Witch' way, this movie was one of the worst I've seen in a while. Not because of how it was shot, but due to the content.....2/3 of this movie felt like I was watching someone's boring home videos. A lot of it was just obvious filler....minute after minute of absolutley unnecessary nothing that simply killed time and didn't move the story along or was drawn out too long. There's literally 10 minutes straight of just someone running around in the dark, all you see is the camera's view with the light hitting the trees randomly and you hear someone panting. It's a looong stretch of film that's just this and this alone. This movie has a cool twist at the end, but not cool enough to make it worth the watch. This is one of those movies you start watching, realize it's boring, hang in there hoping it gets better, but it doesn't, and you struggle with yourself. Should I see it through or turn it off? Don't even bother wasting your time to get to that point! I want my 1.25 hours back! Not scary, boring, full of useless stuff to kill time to turn this into a 'movie'. SKIP IT.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By .fgd
Format:DVD
This film is set in the old family house and in a bamboo labryinth adjoining it. The siblings are new to the place and although it is setting the normal daily juxtapositions for what is to come it is little boring while they find their way around the labrynth. It is the same hand-held camera buisness as Blair Witch project yet whose banter kept me much better amused or on my toes.
There is later a long episode lost and very anxious at night in the labryinth. There is too much time spent panning the night vision beam on what might lie among the foliage and path. The film did not need another " it's a little boring " part.
The film returns to the house at night. Here where Blair Witch ends in the abandoned cottage Atrocious takes off into very scary realms.
I loved the irony at the end
There is later a long episode lost and very anxious at night in the labryinth. There is too much time spent panning the night vision beam on what might lie among the foliage and path. The film did not need another " it's a little boring " part.
The film returns to the house at night. Here where Blair Witch ends in the abandoned cottage Atrocious takes off into very scary realms.
I loved the irony at the end
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Amazon Instant Video
To start with, the first half of this film is very slow. You will wonder what is happening, and what is the point of all of this. In fact, it is truly like watching someone's home videos from 1995 -- very amateur, very boring.
Yet, this is what makes this film succeed in the end. These are truly human characters without any of the Hollywood tricks. They are real; either you sympathize with them, or you don't. End of story. If you don't, you give this movie a one-star review and go on about your business. But if you do, the suspense will grow on you gradually, creep up on you from behind, until you find yourself checking the windows and doors to make sure they are locked.
When it comes to this kind of movie, I am no easy customer. Only Carpenter's _Halloween_ and Kubrick's _The_Shining_ have affected me. _The_Blair_Witch_Project_ (the iconic found-footage film) scared me the first time, but by the second viewing, I was hoping for the annoyingly contrived characters to be killed. Even after several viewings, _Atrocious_ has retained its intended effect. It is a well-crafted thriller that may seem tame by today's standards, but which creates an authentic atmosphere of horror and suspense unparalleled by few movies released in the past few years.
Is it perfect? No. Even though it achieves its intended effect, it really needs something to draw the attention of its audience much earlier in the film. I suspect most negative reviews are written by reviewers who only saw the first half. Do yourself a favor and watch the entire film, then let's hear what you think. You just might be pleasantly (unpleasantly?) surprised!
Yet, this is what makes this film succeed in the end. These are truly human characters without any of the Hollywood tricks. They are real; either you sympathize with them, or you don't. End of story. If you don't, you give this movie a one-star review and go on about your business. But if you do, the suspense will grow on you gradually, creep up on you from behind, until you find yourself checking the windows and doors to make sure they are locked.
When it comes to this kind of movie, I am no easy customer. Only Carpenter's _Halloween_ and Kubrick's _The_Shining_ have affected me. _The_Blair_Witch_Project_ (the iconic found-footage film) scared me the first time, but by the second viewing, I was hoping for the annoyingly contrived characters to be killed. Even after several viewings, _Atrocious_ has retained its intended effect. It is a well-crafted thriller that may seem tame by today's standards, but which creates an authentic atmosphere of horror and suspense unparalleled by few movies released in the past few years.
Is it perfect? No. Even though it achieves its intended effect, it really needs something to draw the attention of its audience much earlier in the film. I suspect most negative reviews are written by reviewers who only saw the first half. Do yourself a favor and watch the entire film, then let's hear what you think. You just might be pleasantly (unpleasantly?) surprised!
Format:DVD
We have another entry into the found footage horror genre, from the files of the Spanish police department comes this one where a family goes to a house in El Garraf surrounded by woods. There's a story about a young girl who got lost in an old labyrinth near said house. After hearing from a friend that there are varying versions of this old legend, they decide to film everything. They being Cristian and his sister July, they film using two handheld cameras to capture any sort of hauntings and images in this old house and it's surroundings.
Well of course at first things seem fine, Cristian and July even explore this labyrinth during the day soon after arriving at the house. Of course like fools they get lost for a bit, then soon after things get weird, their dad doesn't want them in that place and to only film inside the house. Things get evern stranger when figures start appearing around at night, violence of course occurs but none of this ever warrants either Cristian or July putting down their camera or gasp turn it off and run for safety.
The problems with "Atrocious" are plentiful, namely how for a good long while the kids just wander around, checking out the woods, the house especially the basement that has a lot of their old stuff from when they were younger. The shaky camera style of filming really puts off the viewer after a while, in fact it makes the movie feel very amateurish very quickly.
The idea behind the movie isn't a bad one, if not fairly typical but even at 75 minutes this movie drags on for the first half. The Spanish setting and dialogue try to lend a different feel to this material but it doesn't work, at least for too long.... Read more ›
Well of course at first things seem fine, Cristian and July even explore this labyrinth during the day soon after arriving at the house. Of course like fools they get lost for a bit, then soon after things get weird, their dad doesn't want them in that place and to only film inside the house. Things get evern stranger when figures start appearing around at night, violence of course occurs but none of this ever warrants either Cristian or July putting down their camera or gasp turn it off and run for safety.
The problems with "Atrocious" are plentiful, namely how for a good long while the kids just wander around, checking out the woods, the house especially the basement that has a lot of their old stuff from when they were younger. The shaky camera style of filming really puts off the viewer after a while, in fact it makes the movie feel very amateurish very quickly.
The idea behind the movie isn't a bad one, if not fairly typical but even at 75 minutes this movie drags on for the first half. The Spanish setting and dialogue try to lend a different feel to this material but it doesn't work, at least for too long.... Read more ›
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Atrocious
Slow beginning. Plot begins to unravel well into the movie. If you like twisted plots you will like this film.
Published 1 month ago by Adriana Montanez
4.0 out of 5 stars
Creepy and disturbing, even for a die-hard "seen it all" horror fan
First of all, I want to ask everyone who writes a review for anything to be honest. I'm sick of renting stuff that has super high user reviews and turns out to be crap. Read more
Published 3 months ago by TashaNT
2.0 out of 5 stars
Mundanious.
Atrocious (Fernando Barreda Luna, 2010)
Completely generic shakycam feature about a family who heads off to inhabit the ancestral pile, which is surrounded by woods in... Read more
Completely generic shakycam feature about a family who heads off to inhabit the ancestral pile, which is surrounded by woods in... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Robert P. Beveridge
3.0 out of 5 stars
Slow Start
As in all 'hand held footage', the movie does take awhile for it to get interesting but when it does, it works. I did enjoy the twist ending it has. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Boogie
3.0 out of 5 stars
Creepy little film
I didn't have high hopes for this movie when I read about it but I decided to give it a try. It was way better than I thought. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Zane L. Coker
1.0 out of 5 stars
Horrible...and even worse; boring.
I'll be brief. The first two thirds of the film is just a lot of tramping through the underbrush with a camera; the end is tacked on with no connection to the set-up. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Leo's Mom
2.0 out of 5 stars
Probably not what you are hoping for...
I'll make this short - I rented this because I love "found footage" horror movies. This one operates on that premise, and the trailer looked pretty good. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Tom's Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
This film was absolutely Atrocious
I watched the trailer and thought it was going to be this awesome movie but it turned out that it was very cliche and tricked the audience. Read more
Published 19 months ago by James
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