Customer Reviews

Shiver

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

n Shiver, Junio Valverde plays Santi (also plays Santi in Devil's Backbone) a kid who suffers from an allergy to sunlight that forces his mother to move to a small village in northern Spain. The village sits in the mountains and gets significantly less sunlight than the place they were living, so Santi is able to go out during the day and be a normal kid. When a classmate sees something in the woods, Santi and two other kids end up trekking into the woods to find it. One boy ends up dead and Santi is the suspect. DNA testing reveals that he was not the one to kill the boy, but then another man is killed and Santi happens to be nearby yet again. But this time Santi gets a good look at the killer and no one believes him.

A great horror flick! It's suspenseful and the acting is great. There's also a nice little twist at the end that could be considered somewhat predictable, but worked for me.

I recommend this movie. It is the rare combination of skillful direction and cinematography with a plausible, scary plot. Too many horror movies rely on blood and gore to mask the lack of craftsmanship, originality, and talent involved in their production. In Shiver, the acting is excellent, the scenery is beautiful, the plot is more plausible and artfully presented than most, and (most importantly) it delivers some serious chills without relying on the cliched nonsense we have come to expect from movies of this genre. It is an interesting, exciting, original cinematic experience created by a skilled group of professionals.

The version I watched was offered in Spanish with English subtitles. While some may not enjoy this format, I assure you that after a few minutes, and once you become involved in the story, it will be a worthwhile, rewarding cinematic experience.

"Shiver" is a horror-thriller from Spain [originally titled "Eskalofrio"] that subtly gets under one's skin without resorting to cliched plotlines, cheesy acting, and over-the-top blood and gore effects.

Santi [Junio Valverde] is a teenage boy who suffers from photophobia [an extreme aversion to sunlight] and lives with his mother Julia [Mar Sodupe] in the city. Upon doctor's orders, the pair decide to move to Lapland, a sheltered valley where the days are short. Santi and his mother are hopeful that he can finally lead a normal life, and not be treated like a pariah. But things turn out worse than expected - whilst out in the woods with two other boys, one gets attacked and killed, and Santi becomes the prime suspect. The villagers begin to turn menacing and threaten mother and son, even after DNA tests prove Santi's innocence. Then, Santi again finds himself a murder suspect when a man he meets in the woods gets killed. This time, Santi sees the 'thing' attacking the man, but his claims are waived aside as fanciful thoughts by the police. Along the way, Santi discovers some interesting clues in his rental home, objects left behind by the previous tenants that may help him solve the mystery of the creature stalking the woods.

The movie is highly atmospheric, and though the plot felt a bit contrived midway through [when I was able to deduce what was going on], it is the skillful direction that provides viewers with a creepy viewing experience. There are some true jump in your seat moments here, and the best part is one doesn't really know what to expect in these tense scenes [one particular scene is the one where Santi is asleep on the couch].

The movie is basically carried by Junio Valverde's performance as Santi - his alienation and perception of being an outcast shines through in his performance and elicits one's sympathy. Mar Sodupe puts in a credible performance as Santi's loving mother. The other characters, such as Santi's estranged father [who makes a curious appearance midway through the movie] and even the police inspector are lackluster and forgettable. Of course, special credit also goes to the 'thing' that stalks the woods - I felt that it's performance was understated yet chillingly effective in conveying horror.

Unlike many predictable Hollywood horror movies, this Spanish horror flick is intelligent and has a couple of different themes running through it, and a discerning viewer will appreciate how all these are presented in the movie. Fans of atmospheric horror movies will enjoy this [note: I watched it in Spanish with English subtitles, and it did not detract from my enjoyment of the movie].

Eskalofrio (Isidro Ortiz, 2008)

I have seen it said in other reviews that Eskalofrio (in English, Shiver) avoids the trajectory of the American horror film. Here, of course, one should read the implicit "bland" and "boring" just in from of "American" in that phrase, and to be sure, the American horror industry, especially in the studio system, does smack of bland and boring on a regular basis. That does not mean, however, that every foreign horror film is better than every big-budget American horror film (I qualify this because even the meanest defender of all things foreign over all things American would not dispute, I hope, that there is much excitement, if not much talent, to be had in the indie, direct-to-video world where horror is thriving). Eskalofrio is a perfect example of this; in fact, it travels that exact American horror-industry trajectory, though it does so with slightly more grace than one would get from Hollywood.

Santi (The Devil's Backbone's Junio Valverde) is a teenager with a marked sensitivity to light and growing canines. His doctor advises his mother, Julia (Blame It on Fidel!'s Mar Sodupe, looking somewhat haggard here, but still, has the camera loved any woman's face more in recent years?), to move out to the country, where there are entire regions where the daylight is short. Thus, Julia and Santi pack up for one of those lovely, provincial villages in northern Spain, where Santi can live something akin to a normal life--except that the villagers are immediately convinced the kid's vampire. All except for Angela (Blanca Suarez, currently enjoying fame on TV in The Boarding School), the daughter of the local constable, who takes a shine to Santi. It doesn't help his case that a sheep showed up dead, throat torn out, soon after Julia and Santi arrived. Things get worse for him when a couple of kids, who had been bullying Santi, also turn up dead after the three of them are in the woods and Santi gets lost (they ditched him, naturally). Santi and Angela, along with Santi's city-slicker friend Leo (Jimmy Barnatan; American viewers can catch him on the novela Los Serranos) who's up for an unauthorized visit, discover a legend about a local feral child who may be responsible. Needless to say, the police are skeptical, and all the while local landowner Dimas (Alatriste's Francesc Orella) is screaming for Santi's head on a platter.

Is there anything about that synopsis that tells you this is a markedly different film than Hollywood would crank out? Of course not, because it's not. Though whether any American horror film made in the past decade would be informed by Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser is questionable to say the least. Still, the unjustly-accused outsider who has to solve the mystery of the town's murders because he himself is a suspect? Come on, now. That's a plot as well-worn as mystery novels themselves.

Not to say there isn't a lot to like here. The acting is strong from all involved (and can you imagine an American beauty queen allowing herself to look as frowsy as Mar Sodupe does in this film? The last time I can remember that happening in American cinema was Cameron Diaz' turn in Being John Malkovich). The production design is downright sexy, which should be no surprise; production designer Pilar Revuelta last worked on El Laberinto del Fauno; she won an Oscar for it. Josep Civit did the cinematography, which is also gorgeous, and also not a surprise (Gaudi Afternoon was his work, as was Central Station back in the eighties). It's a very pretty thing, and worth watching for that reason, but don't expect to be wowed by the plot. ***

Guys, I really hate to be the party pooper in this group of glowing reviews, but...oh well. I just didn't find this all that scary. This movie is from the producer of The Orphanage and Pan's Labryinth, which were far superior movies than this one. I won't go into detail about the premise of the movie, as the other reviews have already divulged all that, I will just say that as an avid watcher of scary horror movies, not just gory ones, that this was not all that scary. If you liked Twilight, you'll like this movie because there are a lot of Twilight moments between the girl and the hero. The girl even resembles Bella quite a bit. If you liked Blair Witch Project, you'll like this movie too, because there are several scenes which mimic the "shaky camera at night heavy breathing looking into the bushes" scenes of Blair Witch. The actual supposed scary entity of the film turns out to be neither ghost nor real monster, in other words, a let down. And can someone please explain to me what the whole point of his sun-shunning disease was all about? It didn't have any direct bearing to the plot of the film at all, and they would have still had their movie without this distraction. Was it to prove that everyone could blame him for the murders, because of his canine teeth, which didn't make any sense either? Whatever. I'll probably be donating this one to the local library.

What begins as a decent atmospheric, suspenseful thriller, dives deeply into After School Special territory, and (without giving away the ending) ends in the last frames with worst kind of cheap, C-horror twist.

The story was good and fairly believable. The acting, for most of the cast, was very good. The suspense quotient was decent. There were some incongruities with Santi's character, and this troubling inconsistency was maddening and really broke the suspense of disbelief.

Had the director stuck with one vision, preferably the closer-to-reality, non-supernatural story, this would have been a decent flick. Instead it seemed to bounce back and forth, and with that ending, he seemed to just throw in the towel.

It's going to take more than a conveniently scheduled night school and a pair of sunglasses to assist Santi in coping with photophobia (not an actual fear of sunlight; just overly sensitive to it). A change in location might do the trick, but Santi's mother feels Lapland might be a bit on the extreme side. The consolation prize is moving to a remote village in northern Spain that is surrounded by mountains, thus limiting the country folk to daylight on a regular basis. Something else seems to surround said village... a fear, a superstition, if you will, of what walks through the woods... When legends begin to form into a possible reality, does the real evil reside amidst the wilderness, or from the new residents of the town? I mean xeroderma is a most understandable symptom from Santi's condition, but enlarged canine teeth? Yes, members of Spain's horror film gurus in the 21st Century (that Guillermo del Toro seemed to have started) have assembled again (producers Alvaro Augustin and Javier Ugarte; production designer Pilar Revuelta; Junio Valverde as Santi) to make another visually absorbing but, unlike the others, slightly disapointing. However, considering the pedigree of the filmmakers at hand, slightly disapointing still equates to an above average horror film, which includes some of the scariest deep woods scenes ever. Note: Audio and subtitles are available for both Spanish and English, but I would recommend to do without the English dub (which has that all too obvious soundstage aura and lacks a lot of enthusiasm in the dialogue) unless you absolutely abhor reading subtitles. 6.75/10

The premise is really good and there are a few scary parts. The big twist in the movie was one of the best, but the story overall just didn't quite live up to the hype.

This film was not what I was expecting. I like foreign horror films, especially Spanish (like The Orphanage, The Nameless, Pan's Labyrinth(not horror, I know)), and it's probably because they have innovative storylines that do not lead to predictable endings. Always visually stunning, with great moody scores, they just seem to have a great grasp on capturing an eerie mood and dragging the audience in.

Shiver is no exception to mastering the sensory magic of foreign horror films. But Shiver is a departure in its storyline. Santi is allergic to light, so his mother moves out to rustic valley to help his health. Once Santi appears, strange things begin to happen in the woods with fatal results. What is happening, and how will Santi prove he is not the cause? Great twists and turns keep you interested and breaths new life into the horror genre.

Well done film with an innovative story that deserves a look. Recommended.

With Halloween around the corner, "Shiver" is a nice treat from some of the more typical horror movies currently on DVD.

The story revolves around a teenager with a rare allergy to sunlight who moves with his mother to a mountain village where shadows of the mountains filter out most of the sun's harmful rays - allowing the teen to have a more social home and school life. However, when police start finding dead bodies, the boy who must live in the dark is suspected of the murders. There is a mysterious being in the woods of the mountain which the teenager must discover in order to clear his name.

This was a great find I rented on Netflix, but ended up purchasing on Amazon.com for a friend of mine who said he also enjoyed the foreign film. There are some good movies coming out of Spain and other countries right now that are well made, have interesting cinemaphotography, and good actors. "Shiver" is one of them. Although the movie might not quite give you the shivers, the movie's name certainly defines the main character's mental state during the ordeal he and his family and friends end up going through.