En las Afueras de la Ciudad (2012) Reviews

• Some things should stay hidden

  kosmasp2012-09-19

  It seems like the US will remake anything these days. I almost wish they use the subtitles from this movie for their script. Actually better not, because one comedy is enough. It's also what the director said before the screening started. He didn't see it as grim, but more as a fun movie. There's a different view on things. Unless those mentioned subtitles were not an accident, but supposed to sound ridiculous. But it's not only those things that are more than weird. It's the story too. The main villainous guy is kinda funny, but underused. The father (a person of mixed morality, if you're being nice to the character) is plain bad and the girls don't seem to be able to act, if their lives depended on it (which coincidently it does). The other reviewer (up to this point) must have been to another screening at Frightfest. Or was it another dimension? I couldn't tell, but I only heard negative feedback to this movie (apart from the woman that really asked that question at the Q&A but got the "appropriate" reaction from the crowd -> laughter and disbelief). I almost envy this person and wish I was there to experience the movie he has seen. It sounds great ... unfortunately the one I watched, wasn't.

• I can't believe they are doing a remake of this mess

  dschmeding2014-05-24

  This has been the biggest waste of time for me in a long while. I can't remember when I have last seen such a bad movie as "Hidden in the woods". The editing and story telling is atrocious. Scenes are drawn out, then cut in a way so you can't even follow the paper thin plot. Characters are doing things that are completely random and unbelievable or utterly over the top all the time, the girls are constantly screaming which just gets annoying after a while. OK, this is supposed to be an exploitation movie but not even the violence keeps this mess afloat. There is a lot of rape and incest but that is delivered in such a ridiculous way that it often borders on the laughable. Basic premise is that a sick father who is working for drug dealers is living in the woods, killing his wife, raping his daughters which results in one of them having a disfigured son that is raised as an animal. All this is told in a boring and disjointed fashion that buries all the shock value. Suddenly the father goes amok (like many things that happen in this movie just for no conceivable reason), ends in jail and his drug dealer friends try to get their stash, chasing the girls. Then there is some more rape (seriously... there is not one male character in this movie that is not a pervert or rapist), sudden cannibalism just for the fun of it, lame drawn out shoot-outs and a revenge ending with a lot of blood and a short twist which once again suffers from childish editing and story telling. The end of this movie leaves you with the impression that the director must be as mentally retarded as the incest mutant son that keeps mumbling, stumbling and looking at the camera throughout this snooze fest. If you are into horror movies nothing here will shock you. I was bored and often staring at the random happenings on screen in total disbelief. Don't fall for the reviewers who talk of the good special effects. They are basically just showing rapes and pouring buckets of blood on some people. There is a chainsaw killing scene at the beginning that exemplifies which is basically close up of a chainsaw and faces sprayed with red liquid, inter-cut in such fashion that you wonder if the movie got stuck in a time loop. Looks like a fun movie project by school kids and definitely not like a serious film. So don't be mislead by the cinematography which is in comparison to everything else in this movie close to divine (*irony*). The people who are doing a U.S. remake of this waste of resources should be slapped for their utter ignorance and incompetence.

• exploitation from Chile

  trashgang2013-05-07

  This Chile flick has made some impression to Michael Biehn. He wants to do a remake about this brutal flick that is so-called based on true events. This flick is shown at a lot of horror conventions or festivals but seeing it I can't really say that it is a horror. It isn't even a revenge flick but a pure survival flick. It do has a few nasty and brutal moments were the red stuff is flying around but you will not be amused to see it due the brutality. This flick opens with a man killing a woman who appears to be his wife. His two sisters are raised in the woods by their father but he abuses them and rapes them throughout their teens. Of course one got pregnant but having no money the baby is raised with meat. A retarded is raised. The only way to survive is selling drugs but one sudden moment things go wrong and the father is jailed. The sisters ran away with the retard and are trying to survive and not being captured by the drug dealers. It's from there that it rather has some nasty things to offer like when two hikers are in the woods and seeing one of the girls naked they are out to rape her again. But she has a secret, cannibalism. Not your typical story with one of the sisters becoming a hooker and going for blow jobs one after each other. The final is maybe a bit of revenge but it's a blood bath galore. If you think that this is a normal flick about drugs forget it. This is pure exploitation were I admit the story isn't always correct, the chainsaw scene will proof that. Two guns against a chainsaw and the chainsaw wins.... Nevertheless. I enjoyed it and the subs worked out fine. But again, not for everybody, surely a lot of horror geeks will stop it after a while but exploitation buffs will adore it. Gore 2,5/5 Nudity 1,5/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

• London FRIGHTFEST 2012 SCREENING: 'HIDDEN IN THE WOODS/ EN LAS AFUERAS DE LA CIUDAD (2012 Spanish Language Version) '..a heady, nightmarish, adult fairytale'.

  markgordonpalmer2012-08-29

  HIDDEN IN THE WOODS/ EN LAS AFUERAS DE LA CIUDAD (2012 Spanish Language Version) This film was a Grimm-like fairytale horror-crime story with a big nasty injection of wicked humour. It's no surprise Hollywood has already snapped up a remake from the original director (currently in development). Hidden in the Woods earned a long round of applause at its Frightfest 2012 screening. A cross between Lucky McKee's The Woman, Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (without the vampires!), it featured lush and vibrant cinematography of Chilean locations and a pounding country/blues-rock score mixed in with gorgeous, atmospheric piano and appropriately synthy gloom. Ominous sound effects also punctuated the action, in the best Lynchian tradition. The men were scumbags, drug dealers and earned delicious revenge at the hands and teeth of the two sisters who had been kept captive since birth by their brutal father, himself at the mercy of the local drug baron who, in the film's climax, comes looking for them all, and the missing stash of drugs. The dad had allowed the local crimelord (with white twirly beard and luxury villa and two daughters kept in comfort and wealth, compared to the lives of the family we follow whose lives he has ruined) to rape his own wife and possibly his daughters too (something the dad himself was also prone to attempting, in scenes that were not shown in any detail). The rape scenes here were the cause of some controversy at Frightfest, understandably, and they are upsetting but brief, shot frenziedly and not lingering at all. I also felt they had purpose within the plot to create this montrous father figure, demonising him to the extent that the eventual revenge felt all the more sweet. But they were hard scenes to get through, and less sanitised -rightly - than Hollywood's usual salacious version of the same awful crime. The Dad; the monster - all hairy of body and thick of muscle, was the 'ogre under the bridge', with his two daughters' 'trip, trip, tripping footprints' above - the beast that could burrow out of soil with his bare hands. The best movie monster since Karloff did Frankenstein. Regarding accusations of misogyny from some critics towards the film, I can only report back that the usherette I sat next to (I was on the aisle seat, she was perched on the stairs.. at least I hope she was an usherette and not something more sinister) munched sweets and chuckled throughout the screening (actually, beginning to think she was definitely something more sinister now!) and there was also a question from a young female fan at the Q&A after the movie to the director that started with her saying how much she loved the movie and the bloody ending (that was very reminiscent of a sprawled Tim Roth from Reservoir Dogs, with most of the cast writhing on a slick of their own blood on the tiled floor of the local drug baron's villa while shooting at each other at close range) and even said she found the film 'sexy' - well, the scene between one of the daughters and the married man in the motel room was a rare moment of fairly consensual steaminess and the two girls did ooze a certain sexuality when chasing through the jungle after the poor henchmen of the local drug baron who didn't know what was about to hit them between the legs! Within the Woods was an unnerving, unexpected, vibrant, hip, very bloody, gun-toting, great-Grimm fairy tale of a gangster movie with horror edging, that I think will result in more head-swirling films from this young director, Patricio Valladares - who is clearly a real, unpredictable talent to witness and wait for. Valladares hinted at Frightfest that future films will be more crime based, less horror. Which is (when you take away such dreamlike, surreal additions as the feral cannibal brother kept locked up in a room by Dad and released by the sisters) what this film is at heart; a really quite brutal but sly crime movie in a heady, nightmarish, adult fairytale setting. It's a genre all to itself. It's what a Frightfest film should be. mark gordon palmer

• Gory shocker from Chile.

  HumanoidOfFlesh2015-02-07

  "Hidden in the Woods" by Patricio Valladares tells the story of two sisters Ana and Anny who live with their sadistic drug dealing father somewhere in Chilean countryside.The girls are beaten and raped by their father.Their deformed brother is born after one particularly vicious rape.When two cops are chainsawed to death by the father of Ana and Anny the girls flee with their younger brother and hide in a remote cabin in the woods.A violent pack of thugs wants them dead and soon bloodbath ensues."Hidden in the Woods" offers plenty of nasty gore and a bit of sexual violence.All male characters are repulsive and the narration can be quite confusing at times.Still if you like vicious no-holds-barred exploitation cinema give this one a look.If not stick to politically correct garbage from Hollywood.6 chainsaws out of 10.