13 Curses (2002)

A Major Disappointment

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

In 1984, in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, the boy Jacobo witnesses his mother killing his father, the artist Mateo (Luis Tosar), with a shotgun when the local cathedral sounded thirteen tolls. Eighteen years later, the also artist Jacobo (Juan Diego Botto) returns to his hometown from Buenos Aires answering the call of his childhood friend Maria (Marta Etura) to visit his schizophrenic mother that has been sentenced to a psychiatric hospital for killing her husband. Jacobo believed his mother had died years ago, and he is under medication due to frequent clangs of bell that he hears. Jacobo is advised by his mother to leave the town, and sooner he is haunted by Mateo that wants him to finish his work for the local cathedral."Trece Campanadas" is an underrated psychological / supernatural thriller. The story is well constructed and resolved in spite of I have partially guessed the mystery in the middle of the movie; therefore, the director Xavier Villaverde and the writers have successfully accomplished their objective of making a good movie. The unknown (at least for me) Juan Diego Botto and Marta Etura have great performances and show a perfect chemistry and Luis Tosar gives another efficient work. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "13 Badaladas" ("13 Tolls")

Okay, in a world where it seems like no good American horror movies are being made (and special-effects-happy producers are grabbing like greedy children for the rights to remake and otherwise ruin perfectly sound old movies for lack of original ideas in new movies) I have begun to lose faith in the genre. Now don't get me wrong; I believe a truly fantastic horror flick is hard--nay, darn near impossible--to find, but I have rarely been disappointed when I look to the Europeans, for they seem to have a better hold on suspense and thrill than we do here in the States.I'll admit, I basically have a Blockbuster Rewards membership, and so anytime I check out a new release movie (such as The Wicker Man, in this case) I like to check out a companion non-new-release one, too (especially since it comes free). This month I chose this one...and I was certainly not disappointed.I didn't have high expectations for this, and I am still boggled by how the DVD cover translates "trece campanedas" into "13 curses" when it more accurately refers (in the film and in proper language) to "13 chimes," but everything else about the movie is quite good. I rarely enjoy these supernatural psychological thrillers, but I have to say that this one ranks up there with the better ones. The careful weaving in and out of our hero's mind very successfully blurs the line between fantasy and reality; yet miraculously, you're not left at the end of the movie still trying to piece everything together and discovering plot holes, and you don't have difficulty "keeping up" as the movie goes along, either. Yeah, the ending is pretty predictable (and feels a bit 'rushed' relative to the rest of the film), and the whole movie is fairly formulaic for the genre, but it is far better executed than many American attempts at the same. (Think "Hide and Seek" done with a more believable cast and much eerier consistency.) I really, really liked the characters. There is nothing that frustrates me more than a film in which you cannot latch onto any of the characters and just utterly don't care for any of them--especially when you're SUPPOSED to. That isn't a flaw of this movie, for sure, and the acting is quite fine--for the most part. I think the ghost-father is perhaps a little too over-the-top for me and might have been more believably if he were quietly manipulative of his son and wife rather than so overtly violent towards them. But that's not this filmmaker's choice, and I still think it works.The cinematography is quite refreshing and consistent, and the overall pacing of the movie feels only slightly on the slow side (89 minutes would have sufficed, instead of 108, to tell this story and do it justice), but you don't feel like the time is "wasted" really; there is relatively little uninteresting time on camera. I personally LOVED the scenes of the boy working on the sculpture; it was incredibly believable and provides some amazing insight into the labor and art of a sculptor.My overall feeling: It's not genius, but it is quite good and definitely far more worth renting than any new release American horror flick on the market right now.

Jacobo returns to the city of Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia, Northern Spain, after an absence of some years. His father, a sculptor had been killed by his schizophrenic mother, Carmen, who is now in an institution. Soon Jacobo begins feeling the presence of his dead father in the form of a ghost that seems to haunt him.The young man rekindles the friendship with the beautiful Maria, who he now sees as a different person and he begins to see her under a new light. The problem is that Jacobo can't get away from the horrors he feels by the spirit of his dead father and the horrible conditions under which his mother is living at the present.The basic problem with this film is the screen play and the way its director Xavier Villaverde deals with the story. The film, at first, seems like a horror story, but is it really? It appears to be a nightmare living in Jacobo's mind that he can't liberate himself. The city of Santiago takes center stage as it's added to the story like another character. Moments of great intensity alternate with others in which the action disappears, thus creating an uneven film.Juan Diego Botto does an excellent job as Jacobo, the torn young man who is at odds with his past and his present. Luis Tosar plays the dead father with great style. Elvira Minguez is seen as the sick mother, Carmen. Marta Etura appears as Maria, the woman who loves Jacobo.

This tale of a young sculptor haunted by the malicious ghost of his dead father takes its time to get going, but once it does it becomes an interesting, watchable tale with a nice satisfying conclusion. It cleverly keeps the audience guessing about whether the ghost is real or the result of schizophrenia, and has some great looking locations. Its all a little low-key but is definitely worth a look.