Horror Movie Reviews
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Title: Epitafios - The Complete First Season (2006) |
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Review of Epitafios - The Complete First Season
- The critically-acclaimed suspense drama follows the cat-and-mouse game between a police officer (Julio Chavez) who is looking for a reason to live and a psychotic serial killer (Antonio Birabent) bent on revenge, who has found a reason to kill.
Description
- From Buenos Aires with dread comes Epitafios, a devastating, gag-inducing, and gut-wrenching 13-part miniseries, produced by HBO for Latin America, but was such a sensation it earned a subtitled American broadcast and DVD release. Those creepily compelled by Se7en, or who breathlessly awaited the unmasking of the Carver on Nip/Tuck will be hooked into Epitafos from first corpse to last (the body count is substantial). Things get off to a shocking start with the discovery of the gruesomely dismembered body of a former professor, who five years earlier had taken hostage four students, all of whom died when a rescue attempt went horribly awry. Now, someone is methodically killing those who had a direct and indirect connection with the tragedy. Reluctantly pulled back on to the case is psyche-scarred Renzo (Julio Chavez), the suicidal and self-pitying former cop who blames himself for the students' deaths. He quit the force and is now a cab driver. His old friend on the force, the grizzled Benitez (Lito Cruz), recruits him to help when two tombstones bearing their names are found at the crime scene. Sharing Renzo's tombstone is the name of beautiful psychologist Laura Santini (Paolo Krum), who was treating the professor when he flipped out, and with whom Renzo, her patient, had fallen in love.
It gets creepier. Much creepier. In advance of each murder, the killer sends the police fiendishly enigmatic tombstone epitaphs (hence the title), among them: "Here lies he who never should have trusted his best friend" and "Here lies he who turned deception into a game." He also seems to be everywhere and to be able to anticipate his pursuers' every move. He leaves an ominous message for Laura on her child's balloon before she picks him up at school. He ignites the outlines of body drawings on the street where one of his victims will be passing. The despair in Epitafios is palpable. It makes Se7en look like the feel-good movie of the century. It also thinks nothing of pulling the rug out from under viewers expecting major characters to survive the miniseries, or introducing others, such as homicide investigator Marina (Ceclia Roth), with very heavy emotional baggage of their own. But you won't be able to look away, even when you're terrified of what you'll see next. --Donald Liebenson
Amazon.com
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Comments for Epitafios - The Complete First Season
- Posted on 2008-06-03
Excellent, but with the caveat...
...this series is not for the squeamish. Think of it as "Hitchcock meets Jack the Ripper at Sweeney Todd's for a bar-b-que" and you'll get the idea...
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-01-28
A WATCH WITHOUT THE WORKS (DISAPPOINTMENT)
This miniseries, clinically recycled from the mutilated body parts of its betters, is only just watchable.
No doubt, those who find subtlety in the "art" of Marilyn Manson and NIN may be spellbound by this mediocre exercise.
Its psychology is juvenile. Its aesthetic is clumsy and unoriginal. The characterizations barely rise above cliche and the logic of their relationships merely pretend to an illusion of depth.
The "exotic" setting ameliorates these shortcomings somewhat...
but the whole evinces a poverty of vision and the authentic hands of mysterious dread and the Uncanny fail to make an appearance.
After being mercilessly beaten over the head by the "haunting" redundancies of the first two episodes, I wanted to rush to my medicine cabinet for an aspirin.
If you are in doubt (like I was), leave this one on the shelf. This is a watch without the works.
One is better off spending one's time and money on Argento, Lynch and the like...
or better yet: stop being a schmuck and read some Borges.
Score: 2
- Posted on 2008-01-12
Love this series
Though I am not Latin, I love this series! It will intrigue you from the start with its thick plots and unique settings. Well done!
Score: 5 - Posted on 2007-12-11
A phenomenal original series that's unique and exciting
See other reviews for details about this series. It's awesome! Seriously, Hollywood should fire its striking writers (since the product they produce lately is pretty amateurish and pathetic anyway) and hire some of these foreign production writers.
Regarding the quality, it's excellent. OK, yes, it is presented in full screen mode, but that's actually standard for most foreign films, because they rely on the the space in the bottom black bar for subtitle captioning. But it could also be that presenting it in the widescreen mode would make it more grainy. After all, this series was filmed on 16mm film. In the full screen mode, projected onto a 112" diagonal home theater screen, it looked perfectly fine, like any good quality film.
Yes, you can't examine actors' pores for zits and blackheads like you can with HD widescreen, but frankly, that's not what I watch films for.
The sound quality is excellent. The behind-the-scenes bonus is interesting too.
Well worth getting a copy to enjoy over and over again.
Score: 5 - Posted on 2007-08-09
Great script better cinema
Although Epitafios is TV, I would consider it as good cinema. It is compeling and keeps you on in suspense until the end. For the Spanish speakers, although it is filmed in Argentina, the actors don't have the thick argentinian accent and better yet it does not uses argentinian slang that is undecifrable unless you are local. This is good and you won't regret it.
Score: 5