Eskalofrío (2008) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

Spain 2007
Director: Isidro Ortiz
Cast: Junio Valverde, Blanca Suárez, Jimmy Barnatán, Mar Sodupe, Francesc Orella, Paul Berrondo, Berta Ros
Rating: Not Rated
Language: Spanish
Release Date: 18 July 2008
Running Time: 1 hour 34 minutes 27 seconds

The Movie Review

Eskalofrío film still 1


ESKALOFRÍO (SHIVER)
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
Overall:

My friend came to my house the other day and without me knowing, he popped in a horror DVD, Rec (2007), one of Spain's best horror films. And it reminded me that I still haven't reviewed another Spain's horror, "Eskalofrío" which also known as "Shiver" in its International title. Of course I didn't tell my friend about this flick since it's so darn late already, and I needed to snooze fast. Besides seeing how he watched Rec first instead of Shiver, I doubted that he would be shivered by Shiver. And I found three distinctive similarities of Rec and Shiver: first, Shiver uses the name Ángela for the character and Vidal as the name of the school, Ángela Vidal is the lead name in Rec. Second, Shiver at one point employs the use of Handheld camera with the text "• Rec" on its interface, and the third similarity will be given below, since it would be a spoiler both for Rec and Shiver. Nevertheless, Shiver is another Spanish movie that I'll be gladly to recommend to horror aficionados out there.

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The third similarity is Shiver uses the same form of monster as the main villain, a child monster, even though, the monster in Shiver has more screen time.
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Eskalofrío was produced by the same people behind Pan's Labyrinth (2006) and The Orphanage (2007). Different with Pan's Labyrinth’s delightfully thrilling bloody mysterious fantasy theme, Shiver feels more real to the current era of our life, their similarity is that both movies involving the creepy woods as the main backdrop. Santiago or Santi (Junio Valverde), a 16-year old teenager is suffering a rare disease that makes him extremely vulnerable to sunlight, which is called as Photophobia. His misfortune eventually forces his mother, Julia (Mar Sodupe), to move to a small village in northern Spain where the sunlight is always blocked by thick clouds that hang over for most of the time.

Alas, soon after fitting in with his new school, Santiago is dragged to a mud pit of bigger new problems. It's all started when Santi's new friend, Tito freaks out when he is chased by a strange animal-like creature. So Santi, Jonas and Tito are investigating it into the woods. But Jonas got killed in a gruesome way when Santi is the only person nearby. Jonas’ blood was sucked. Certainly this leaves Santi as the prime suspect or the prime witness, but his position as an out-of-towner and suffering a vampire-like disease make other villagers have prejudice against him. Lucky for him, the cutest girl on his class, Ángela (Blanca Suárez), trusts him and is willing to help Santi seek the truth. Could Santi prove that he's innocence? And what is the real form of the sightings in the woods?

One thing for sure, Shiver (Eskalofrío's English title) could be considered as a clean horror film. Far from exploitation stuff such as blood, gore and nudity. The bloody scenes are kept minimum, and they're mostly dry. One scene of snare trapping a person in the woods should be extremely cringe-inducing, but it fails to reach that level, it should've been optimized better. And the nudity is none. Unfortunately this clean horror also lacks some new stuff that avid horror fans might expect. On the contrary, if you rarely watch horror films, then almost everything in Shiver could thrill you. However, one of the strongest points of Shiver is no other than the twist.

Yes, the twist near the end is an excellent choice, a logical one and an important part of the whole storyline, of which from then on, the movie starts to be filled with adrenaline-inducers with all the betrayal and the revelation. Thanks to the solid performances of Mar Sodupe and Francesc Orella (as Dimas the owner of the house). It's too bad that the end is very easy to guess. Moreover, recalling that this movie relies heavily on the mystery aspect, it's very weird that several poster versions of Eskalofrío, blatantly ruin the mysterious sightings. So I opted to display the rather obscure (and awful) version of the poster as you can see above.

If you're fed up with all the gore, nudity, sleaze, and sadism in the recent trend of horror films, and if you prefer movies like Them (2006) or The Strangers (2007), then Shiver would be a good addition. Shiver's got a good combination of horror, drama and mystery.