Studio: Dark Star Pictures
Director: Maxi Contenti
Writer: Manuel Facal, Maxi Contenti
Producer: Lucia Gaviglio Salkind, Maximiliano Contenti, Alina Kaplan
Stars: Luciana Grasso, Ricardo Islas, Emanuel Sobre, Patricia Porzio, Bruno Salvati, Julieta Spinelli, Vladimir Knazevs, Hugo Blandamuro, Yuli Aramburu, Pedro Duarte, Daiana Carigi
Review Score:
Summary:
A serial killer who feasts on the eyeballs of his victims stalks a horror movie screening at a theater in Uruguay.
Review:
“The Last Matinee,” which was previously titled “Red Screening,” takes place in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, in 1993. On a rain-soaked city street, the Opera Cinema prepares to show a screening of “Frankenstein: Day of the Beast” to a sparsely-populated theater. Unbeknownst to the small handful of patrons, one of the people in attendance is a twisted serial killer who feasts on the eyes of his victims, and he’s secretly skulking around to find his next murderous meal.
“The Last Matinee” might be set in 1993, but “Frankenstein: Day of the Beast” is actually an off-the-grid indie from 2011. You wouldn’t know that if no one told you though. Judging by its paltry seven user reviews and 3.6 IMDb score, it seems barely anyone knows about this forgotten flick at all. To be honest, I assumed “Frankenstein: Day of the Beast” was some little known period piece from the 1970s because “The Last Matinee” helps it look exactly like every cheaply-licensed midnight movie I used to watch on the local late show in the 1980s.
Yet what I really like about this peculiar pick for the centerpiece screening is that “The Last Matinee” doesn’t take either of the common routes most movies choose in this situation. Usually when a film within a film is needed, producers take the easiest way out by stealing from a public domain movie and we’re stuck watching “Night of the Living Dead” clips for the millionth time. Either that or they shoot something thrown together lickety-split and we’re left with a hammy hackjob that’s more cheesy than chilling since it was only ever regarded as B-roll. Here, we instead get a weirdo obscurity that looks like a real movie, because it is, but it’s pretty much unfamiliar to everyone.
Another feather in “The Last Matinee’s” cap is that it doesn’t just show random snippets from this film to fill the time. Splattery scenes are often front and center, complementing current carnage with a few throwback thrills that additionally use audiovisual cues to reflectively accentuate what’s going on inside the auditorium. “Frankenstein: Day of the Beast” becomes a secondary character of sorts, not a cheaply interchangeable device no one put any thought into.
1993 or 2011, you might wonder why would anyone, no matter how bored or desperate, brave a storm to see a bit B-movie like “Frankenstein: Day of the Beast?” Well, “The Last Matinee” slips in reasonable explanations to justify how this eclectic bunch of oddballs ended up in the same theater together.
It makes sense that the only person who truly wants to be there is Tomas, a little boy who sneaked in on his own to eat candy off the floor while staring at the screen like a pint-sized zombie. A dude who brought a disinterested date didn’t know anything about the movie ahead of time, and doesn’t care anyway once his girl’s hand goes for his pants. A trio of teens just wanted a place to hang after swigging booze against a brick wall outside. A Jonah Hill lookalike in that crew even asks out loud, “what is this?” while sporting a confused squint midway through the screening. “Frankenstein: Day of the Beast” was never a destination event for any of these folks.
On the other side of the concession stand so to speak, Ana mans the projection booth upstairs. She’s a student who isn’t technically trained for the job. She still knows enough to fill in for her father, whom she sends home on account of a second consecutive shift being bad for the old man’s already ill health.
More than an ordinary ‘Final Girl,’ Ana is anything but a cursory character, even though she doesn’t have all that many minutes. It’s neither a big deal nor a primary plot point that she worries about her dad’s wheezing cough. It’s a minor bite of backstory seeing as how he only appears for a short little while. But when disappointment flashes on her face once she finds her father’s secret stash of hidden cigarettes, or when her posture takes on slump-shouldered exasperation as theater usher Mauricio tries to make small talk, we see there’s more going on in Ana’s mind so she isn’t an empty shell of a heroine. It’s all the time we need to accept Ana as a focused, brainy, and confidently caring young woman whose side we want to be on.
Similarly, “The Last Matinee” gives us only as many moments as necessary to see Mauricio for the sleepy slacker he is. When Ana becomes annoyed with his banal banter that escalates into vague blackmail, his antics jump from mildly amusing to majorly obnoxious, which rubs us the wrong way just in time for his death to earn an “eh, he had it coming” reaction.
Speaking of bothersome behavior, “The Last Matinee” continues bucking convention by having its teen trio turn into a moderately endearing troupe when they could have stayed stereotypically off-putting putzes. At first, their loudmouthed buffoonery causes them to get into it with a couple of elderly patrons. But they nicely settle into their own side story where one of them becomes smitten with a girl in the audience and the other two take turns talking him into, and then insulting him out of, making a move. It’s nothing you’re going to invest in to the extent of eagerly saying, “Ooh, I wonder if these two are going to hook up!” But it’s another little thing that puts a third dimension onto these people so they aren’t mere meat puppets spinning on a hamster wheel until it’s their turn to take a blade in the belly.
“The Last Matinee” sits still for a spell before getting stabby-stabby, although when it finally makes that turn, the film unleashes some stylish slaughter. Bodies don’t lose enough blood to be put back into four people or anything fantastically elaborate like that. But sights such as smoke billowing from a slit throat after it’s slashed while dragging a cigarette boost the movie’s murders with understated creativity.
Mirroring what happens in real theaters, gradually growing momentum plateaus around the midsection when people get up and go to the bathroom for various reasons. During this lull, character insight stands still and a lot of what happens serves no practical purpose for future setups, so “The Last Matinee” dips into decidedly less enticing territory here.
Negligible sequences notwithstanding, the majority of the movie nails the feeling of a crisper, slicker Italian horror film from the 1980s even though it’s in Spanish. I’m not sure how much of that is intentional, and I’m not sure that it matters. Argento and Bava vibes streak the screen in sporadic spurts without having to drown the scenery in garish red and green lights. The killer’s black gloves and habit of hiding his face further the feel of a gritty giallo that might make those maestros proud. “The Last Matinee” doesn’t overemphasize its 1990s era either, simply letting background dressing and wardrobe do the light lifting of selling the setting without overloading on period pop culture references or sore thumb hairdos.
There’s nothing all that out of the ordinary about “The Last Matinee,” though that’s another thing I appreciate about its approach. Its to-the-point tone is neither comedic nor darkly serious, hitting a nice mix that’s mildly macabre while still fitting the bill as escapist entertainment. The movie doesn’t have a deep mythology. It’s not trying to establish the next merchandisable horror icon with its villain. “The Last Matinee” is strictly a solid slasher that the monster kid in me would have loved to take home alongside “The Video Dead” or “Witchboard,” silently slip into the VHS player once my parents went to sleep, and then gone to bed thinking, “you know, that was pretty cool.”
NOTE: The film’s Spanish title is “Al morir la matinée.”
Review Score: 75
Everyone else who has no problem with a fright flick that feels like “Lizzie McGuire” decided to get dark with a PG-13 Halloween special should do just fine.