30 MONEDAS / KATLA

And now, for those of you who may want a viewing commitment more substantial than just a 2 hour-or-so movie (and don’t consider the reading of subtitles an annoyance), this pair of foreign-language TV horror shows get a couple of hearty ¡Qué horror! recommendations.

30 MONEDAS

(30 COINS)

Season 1

(November 2020)

“Do you know the best way to conceal a lie? Inventing a much bigger one.”

“That’s true. It’s par for the course in politics.”

Álex de la Iglesia serves up some pulpy religious horror with 30 Monedas, which, as indicated by its title, has the very coins which were the price of Jesus’ betrayal as the series’ centerpiece.

“We all have something we can’t manage to forget, don’t we, Father? With the Internet, there are no secrets anymore.”

“That really is an invention of the Devil.”

And while the practical make-up/creature effects are much appreciated by yours truly (the huge CGI set piece, not so much), thankfully it isn’t all po-faced horror here.

Fleeting moments of comic lightness stem organically from characters and their interactions with each other so the proceedings don’t inadvertently suffocate us with constant terror-induced anxiety.

“There is a much deeper horror. We live in the midst of a hurricane of lies and deceit. There are no truths, only a furious instinct of destruction and madness, provoked by your God.  I don’t know for what reason. Maybe it’s just for the pleasure of making you suffer.”

And then, for a change of pace…

Strip away the Biblical MacGuffins and the cause-and-effect plot mechanics, swap in a grey ash-laden mood and bleakly creepy atmosphere and a tighter focus on character and emotion, and we have…

KATLA Season 1

(June 2021)

“If you ask me, nothing here seems normal anymore. I know that you scientists don’t believe things unless it can be measured with your fancy equipment, but I can tell you that something is happening that science can unfortunately not explain.”

The eponymous Katla has been in a state of volcanic unrest for a year now, and the small Icelandic community of Vik is all but a ghost town, with most of its inhabitants evacuated, and the remaining few simply “trying to survive.”

But, as if that weren’t already bad enough, some undeniably weird sh!t belatedly hits the fan…

This one revels in its central mystery, one of dread and anticipation, as we (and the forcibly dwindled population of Vik) bear witness to the impossible and inexplicable return of individuals who really shouldn’t be among us, at least, not in the manner in which they’ve returned.

And with that sentence, it should come as no surprise that there are echoes of Les Revenants in Katla, as everyday lives are impacted by the reintroduction of… well… not the dead, exactly, as in Les Revenants*, but certainly, of individuals whose very presence flies in the face of everything we know about existence.

To its credit, Katla doesn’t overly prolong the “Why?” of its mystery.

By its final, eighth episode, it’s made clear why this is all happening. Mileage may vary, however, as to whether any particular audience member will accept the explanations, given how everything shakes out in the end.

At the very least, answers are offered, while leaving matters open for any potential follow-up season.

“Nature regularly reminds us how small we are. How everything we’ve got depends on it.”

* Though there are apparently some of those.

And hey! Lookit! There’s a creepy kid here, too!

(30 Monedas key art courtesy of impawards.com; Katla key art courtesy of twitter.com.)

THE DARK AND THE WICKED (April 2020)

THE DARK AND THE WICKED

(April 2020)

“She would sit... right beside him, just whispering. But she wasn’t talking to him. Not like she used to. It was like… there was someone else. Someone here.”

Bryan Bertino is back ‘round these parts with the upsetting, emotionally wrenching dirge that is The Dark and the Wicked.

The rural horror film sees the Straker siblings return to their family farm in Thurber, Texas, where their mother lives with their bedridden (and rapidly deteriorating) father.

Louise (Marin Ireland; The Umbrella Academy Season 2) and Michael (Michael Abbott Jr.) intend to stay for a few days, to help, perhaps to lend emotional support, in what looks, in all likelihood, to be their final farewell to their father.

But it’s clear their mother (Preacher’s Gran’Ma, Julie Oliver-Touchstone) doesn’t want them there. She says as much.

With Bertino at the helm, you can be damned certain there’s a good reason for that…

“What does it matter whether you believe? You think the wolf cares if you believe he’s a wolf? Hmmm? Not if he finds you alone in the woods.”

Anyone who’s seen Bertino’s The Strangers* knows his complete, stranglehold control over onscreen tension, and that masterly deathgrip is plainly evident here as well, so much so that painfully ordinary domestic fixtures (a light switch, a telephone) become objects of dread and revulsion.

But that’s really only just the entrée.

‘Cause the main course is the full-on assault by wicked and unholy powers on the bonds of family and love.

Decide for yourself if this is a meal you want to partake of…

“Devil, devil, devil.”

* Landing on the ¡Qué horror! 2008 list, there’s a review of The Strangers here.

Meanwhile, Bertino’s third directorial effort, The Monster, crashed onto the 2017 rundown.

And, for completion’s sake (and because if you haven’t seen it, you most definitely should), Osgood Perkins’ The Blackcoat’s Daughter (on which Bertino was a producer), likewise made a spot for itself on the 2016 rundown.

(The Dark and the Wicked OS courtesy of impawards.com.)