TERRIFIED (2017)
AKA ATERRADOS
Label: Acorn Media International
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Cert. 15
Rating: Cert. 15
Duration: 87 Minutes
Audio: Spanish DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo, English-dubbed DTS-HA MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video:1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Demián Rugna
Cast: Maximiliano Ghione, Norberto Gonzalo, Elvira Onetto, George L. Lewis, Julieta Vallina, Demián Salomón
The Argentine creep-fest Terrified (2017) features not just a house home but a trio of homes in suburban Buenos Aires that are seemingly haunted. The residents are plagued by strange, unnatural occurrences, which we first encounter when a Clara (Natalia Señorales) hears voices emanating from the kitchen sink drain while she's doing dishes. That night her boyfriend Juan (Agustín Rittano) wakes up and hears a repetitive thumping sound he at first attributes to his neighbor Walter (Demián Salomón), who has been doing some renovation work in his apartment, that seems to have caused a crack to form in a shared wall. Juan investigates the sound but comes to discover it's coming from his own bathroom. Inside he witnesses an invisible supernatural force slamming his girlfriend around the bathroom, killing her. Afterward Juan is charged with the crime, but the weird happenings continue with that neighbor Walter sensing a presence in his apartment, he's terrified and it's driving him mad. Across the street Alicia (Julieta Vallina) loses her adolescents son in a vehicular accident that happened on the street in front of the house, but four night later her son (Matias Rascovschi) comes back from the grave to visit his grieving mother.
Alicia's ex, the police commissioner Funes (Maximiliano Ghione) is called in, along with coroner Jano (Norberto Gonzalo) to investigate the return of the dead boy. As they arrive the first-responder cops are clearly freaked out, and with good reason. Inside the corpse of the boy seated at the kitchen table, his skin charcoal gray and decomposing. While surveying the area Jano runs into a paranormal investigator Dr. Mora Albreck (Elvira Onetto), who is also on site investigating the reported supernatural activity. Jano ends up inviting her and and her supernatural sleuthing
associate, the arch-eyed browed Rosenstock (George Lewis) to join-in on the investigation.
The paranormal investigator along with Jano and Funes return later that night and split up into the different houses looking to get to the root of the neighborhood nightmare, but as the night wears on things that go bump in the night make themselves known and terror and panic ensue, it's even too much for the experienced (?) paranormal investigators.
This one actually creeped me out quite a bit, the apparitions or inter-dimensional creatures, whatever they are, which are move unnaturally and are attracted to blood. They can be seen on video but are hard to spot with the naked eye, though and at one point Jano can see them from a certain angle while peering through a pane of window glass from a certain angle. It's not a gore-fest but there's some gruesome imagery, and creepy imagery as well, like a long-fingered arm reaching out from a crack in the wall to snatch someone's head. The flick is very well-made and attractively shot with an appropriate nerve-shredding score by director Demián Rugna pulling triple-duty as writer-director-composer. While it's not a negative for me, I can see it irking others though, this is not a film that does a lot of explaining about what the fudge is actually happening in the neighborhood, there are some theories but there's never really a solid explanation of anything, and that's just fine by me. So, if definite answers are a thing you care about you might me put off by the ambiguousness of it, but when it comes to the supernatural I don't need much explanation, I just go with it. A definite recommend, and if you're someone who enjoys a 'this movie sort of reminds me of comparison' this sort of reminded me of something like Poltergeist (1982) by way of The Beyond (1`981) with a sprinkling of 70-'s made-for-TV Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1972).
Audio/Video: Shudder original Terrified (2017) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Acorn Media International in 100p HD framed in 2.35:1 widescreen with the original Aterrados title card. This is a very attractively shot film with a sickly nighttime pallor that intensifies the haunting elements with deep saturated hues and inky black shadows, the Blu-ray technical merits are strong. Audio comes by way of of Spanish and English-dubbed DTS-HD MA 2,0 stereo with optional English subtitles. The Spanish dialogue is clean and direct, the atmospheric whispering and tension filled score create a nice stereo sound design, but I can only imagine a 5.1 surround mix would have been even better. The English-dub is not awful but go with the Spanish audio, it's way less canned-sounding.
Sadly we get no extras on this release, I would have loved a commentary or even a brief making of featurette. The single-disc release arrives in an oversized keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork, the same key art is featured on the disc inside.
Special Features:
- None
Terrified (2017) is a uniquely unsettling paranormal film, it's rare that a haunter actually gives me the chills but more than once this gave me the goosebumps. I feel like this one has gone a bit under the radar, so I encourage fans of creepy frights to check it out, this is easily one of my favorites of the Shudder originals .
Screenshots from the Blu-ray:
