La cabina (1972 TV Movie) User Reviews

Not for those of a nervous disposition

[philkessell · 9/10 · 30 July 2005]

If I was allowed to take only one website onto a metaphorical desert island it would have to be this one. The reason? Simply that it allows you to trawl your memory banks for anything from childhood and join a small but select band of like minded individuals. So it was with me and 'La Cabina'.

I think, though I may be wrong, that the sporting event in question was the 1980 World Snooker Championship, when Cliff Thorburn scored the first televised 147 break. The session went on longer than planned, and instead of starting that Saturday night's horror double bill (an event eagerly anticipated by me on a weekly basis) with a full length b/w effort (Val Lewton stuff got a regular airing, something you never get these days) and finishing off with something from the modern age, we got this instead. I too, was sat there watching that Saturday night, and can remember it very vividly.

As a 13 year old I was perhaps less able or willing to intellectualize the viewed material, preferring to just sit and watch as the horror unfolded and the sense of mild claustrophobia the viewer feels at the start snowballs into absolute panic by the end. The sense of despair, as if all hope is lost, reminds me of the conclusion of the 1978 remake of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'. It's as if everyone else is colluding against that poor hapless individual who will never see the light of day again. Of course, unfashionable, esoteric material like this will probably never find its way onto a DVD, and I share the views of others here who say that, just perhaps, that's a good thing. Let it live on in the minds of us thirty somethings, preserved in aspic the way a REAL horror film should be. I think if I ever saw Karen Black's 'Trilogy of Terror' anywhere I'd think along similar lines. Nothing quite captures the moment again folks. Growing up is a real drag sometimes!!

Not for those who get easily desperated.

[insomniac_rod · 8/10 · 18 August 2006]

This is a little dirty hidden gem. There is no need to know Spanish because most of the dialogs in the movie are rather atmospheric elements. You just learn that the two men who first try to help the man trapped in the cabin cannot continue trying to help him because they are late for work. Then, people mock the second though guy by calling him Tarzan. But those lines and mocking setting help to create a black humor atmosphere.

The rest of the movie, after our mustached man hero is "rescued" by the cabin company is just when the fun really begins.

The acting by the main character is really good even though that it's mostly a silent performance. You can hear some lines from him but his facial expressions tell everything you need to know. His desperation, anger, feeling of uncertainty, are very well displayed. Plus, the score deserves special mention because it helps to increase the tension in the most important scenes. The score used when the cabin is traveling though the tunnel is perfect for the scene.

HUGE SPOILERS The ending is disturbing and you can feel the pain of our main character when he sees the rotten corpses and skeletons of other unfortunate cabin booth victims. The climax of the movie is a perfect way to end this 30 minutes Black Horror Comedy. Please track it down, it's the perfect appetitive before watching a Horror movie.

Suspenseful and strange short movie with an awesome interpretation

[ma-cortes · 8/10 · 1 November 2019]

A man walks with his child and then he gets trapped at a phone booth while some outlookers attempt unsuccessfully to free him. After that , some operatives from the telephone company have in store for him by transporting on a truck throughout Madrid capital, along the way he is taunted and mocked by the people who observe him. Later on, the imprisoned person suffering puzzlement and horror as he arrives in a large facilty where he discovers extraordinary surprises until a creepy finale.

Splendid and succint Short with a great acting by Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez. This is an astonishing, shocking, and amazing film, almost surrealist, containing some weird images and eerie happenings. It is sad as well as poetic when some some clowns watching pitily the desperado protagonist. It packs interesting, twisted and bizarre script from the prestigious Jose Luis Garci and Mercero himself. There stands out the awesome acting from Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez who gives a terrific role. And including various brief appearances by notorious Spanish secondaries as Agustin Gonzalez, Goyo Lebrero, Maria Vico , Blaki and Tito Garcia.

It provides an evocative and atmospheric cinematography by Federico G Larraya, who photographed For a fustful of dollars by Sergio Leone. As well as frightening and thrilling musical score, addiing religious chores. Well produced by Jose Salcedo and nicely directed by recently deceased Antonio Mercero who made several TV Series as Cronicas de un pueblo, Ese señor de negro, Turno de Oficio, Manolito Gafotas and films as Las delicias de los verdes años, Don Juan mi querido fantasma, Esperame en el cielo, Planta 4, Hora de los valientes, El tesoro, Y tu quien eres, being his greatests hits , La guerra de papa, Toby and the Series Verano Azul with Antonio Ferrandis as the unforgettable Chanquete. Rating 8/10 above average.

Never forgotten

[jonwestley · 10/10 · 21 February 2012]

When I was a child I played outside. I was happy. I did not know about life. I skipped school. I looked at the stars. I was innocent. I loved purely the girl I saw across the street. I was happy. I like films that move me. 'Soft' films like Field of dreams. I'm not a critic. I like happy endings. This is not a film I would have chosen to watch. I tuned in to this once by accident when I was young. It has never left me. I'm not happy I watched it. It changed me. It stole my childhood. I would not have missed it for the world. To this day I speak of it. No one I know has ever seen it. I always wondered if I imagined it. Having seen IMDb I now know it was real. Now I have worse fears. Was this really a film or a message sent to just a few to warn us. A warning. A WARNING. I would have missed it for the world. Oh God.

Thank God for Mobile Phones

[lewisrailway · 18 January 2002]

I saw this movie in the early 1980s, possibly as a matinee before Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, and it made such a deep impression on me that i paid no attention to the main feature! It starts off quite simply with our hero becoming stuck in the telephone box [La Cabina] and develops through his efforts to free himself with the assistance of onlookers who are initially amused,then concerned and finally bored to the point where they ignore his plight.Shades of Candid Camera i thought,but nothing prepared me for the terrifying finale when he learns his fate.Like "The Haunting"[1963] this film work on a deeper psychological level,playing on our fear of being in situations we cannot control and the ending seems all too plausible. Not one for the kids, but an easy 10/10

Wonderful memories

[clive-henderson · 10/10 · 19 March 2005]

I saw this film in the 1970s and even as a late teenager it gave me the creeps. For many years afterwards I kept my foot between the telephone box and the door. Silly I know but.. There are only a handful of films that have left their mark on me and this is one of them. Have been searching high and low to buy a copy for many years and often wonder how dated it would seem now. I know of only 2 other friends who have seen it and it has left a similar impact on them. The story is a simple one and you know that it seems silly and he will eventually get out and have the mickey taken out of him. I was certainly not prepared for the ending.

Succinct, shocking, unforgettable and entirely indelible

[Afracious · 10/10 · 29 October 1999]

I have not seen this film for a while but I have seen it several times on TV and I have never forgotten it. It is a film with minimal dialogue and pieces of classical music. The story is simple. A man takes his son to school. On the way home he enters a telephone box which has its door slightly ajar, like a venus fly trap waiting to snare its victims. He finds it is out of order and cannot open the door. He is helpless. People try but fail to get him out. Then the phone company's truck arrives along with several men. I won't reveal anymore but the finale is terrifying and shocking and is unforgettable. I first watched this movie when I was eight-years-old and after I wouldn't go into a phone box for a while in fear of being trapped inside. One of the truly great films.

Legendary Short Film

[se7en45 · 10/10 · 1 December 2002]

La Cabino is a film constructed on simplicity and brilliance. The story about a man trapped inside a public phone-booth starts off as a comedy and then gradually spirals into a surreal nightmare from which there seems no escape. This short film is rich in symbols and metaphors about loneliness and alienation in the urban landscape. How ironic that we have our main protagonist trapped, like a fly inside a glass jar, he wants to communicate his terror but the telephone is out-of-order and we bear witness to his growing unease and dread. Human dialogue is kept to a bare minimum and it feels like a silent film with a dream-like quality which becomes claustrophobic.

This stark film has an atmosphere that sears the mind and emotions of viewers and the residue it leaves behind remains long after the film has finished. The haunting and creepy cinematography is suffused with suspense and unseen menace. Terror prowls about as we watch with dried mouths. A complete masterpiece of the genre that would have Hitchcock turning livid with envy.

Sadly, there is no DVD, Laser-Disc or VHS tape available of this magnificent example of the art of the short film. Over the years there have only been a handful of broadcasts on television and even those rare outings have been at unearthly hours. Someone like Martin Scorsese, Mark Kermode or Criterion should hunt down a print and issue this amazing film for us all to enjoy.

The way it looks at present, however, is that eventually it will join the ranks of lost legendary films of the past. It will only remain in the memories of the lucky few who first experienced this bleak drama back in the 1970's.

THE TELEPHONE BOX (TV) (Antonio Mercero, 1972) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 23 January 2010]

This 35-minute surreal Spanish short is a one-joke movie that, while perhaps a mite too extended to achieve maximum effect, has a splendidly horrific punch-line that belies the blackly comedic touches of its earlier stages. In fact, for at least half its length, this virtually resembles a Tatiesque farce (complete with negligible dialogue and pompous characterizations) with a Bunuelian premise (the inexplicable confinement of its protagonist in the titular cubicle seems to come right out of my own second favorite among the Spanish maestro's films, THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL [1962]). The plot itself is disarmingly simple: a newly-installed red phone booth incites the curiosity of a man who has just accompanied his boy to school but, as he is making a call, the previously invitingly open door shuts itself and, subsequently, he is unable to open it from the inside. As time passes, bystanders start to accumulate and become a veritable microcosm of humanity: from laid-back pensioners to mischievous school-children, from young couples to old housewives...and, of course, a gluttonous onlooker, the heavy-set man who clearly thinks he can effortlessly break the door open and the incredulous police officers who, invariably, all make fools of themselves; before long, the professionals come to the rescue: first the firemen who are about to use the axe on the thing when the phone company people who installed it in the first place appear on the scene and literally lift the telephone box off its hinges and drive away with it wholesale! Then follows the lengthy trek through the city streets (where a couple of other equally imprisoned callers can also be seen being carried away!) until the truck arrives at its destination: a tunnel replete with similar telephone boxes whose occupants have either gone off the wall, killed themselves or even decomposed!! Although nothing further is explained about this phenomenon, one cannot fail to be reminded of similarly bleak 'twist' endings like those seen earlier in John Frankenheimer's SECONDS (1966) and later in Richard Fleischer's SOYLENT GREEN (1973). Finally, I watched this Spanish TV production in its original Spanish language version with no subtitles whatsoever but, as I said before, one can easily follow what is going on the screen and, thankfully, the mostly dialogue-free movie is further boosted by an excellent music score.

A dramatic view of the human being

[gutich · 10/10 · 6 January 2006]

Even though I was only three years old when "La cabina" was broadcasted (december 1972), I still remember that in Spain it was such an event that it became a major subject of conversation among the people. Years later, as a remarkable coincidence, I moved to live just in the same street where the filming was done. However, to be exact, the precise location is a small park not open to public traffic, situated between Rodriguez San Pedro and Arapiles streets and Conde del Valle de Suchil square, downtown Madrid. Thirty years later, this small private park still keeps the atmosphere depicted by Mercero in this classic short. It's impossible to walk through it and not to remember "La cabina".

A bright and sunny day, which later turned dark and full of despair. Everything can suddenly change, and sadly we don't know when, how or why... Interestingly, "La cabina" says nothing about the identity of the phone company men. Everything, for the man on the street, is unknown. Nobody knows who handles the threads of human life.

Lack of solidarity. The feel of loneliness even being among a crowd. Who has ever felt that in a big city? Fear. Hopeless. Panic. A dramatic view of the human being. Who has ever thought, for just a second, towards where are we going? Where does life drive us to? The finale is quite disturbing and brings sensations similar to the ones generated by some Goya's "Black Paintings". At first one has a little comfort knowing that there are others in the same situation, but when the final destination is revealed there's no place for anything but panic.

Telephone boxes like that do not exist anymore in Spain. However, the open traps are waiting for us somewhere and one day we might find ourselves in a tunnel like that waiting for the inevitable destiny to come.

I'm glad we now have cell phones

[Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki · 7/10 · 22 February 2014]

Beautifully framed bright red phone booth in the middle of an open square, framed by trees. Kids play around it, nuns walk past it, and a businessman in a screamingly loud necktie curiously gets stuck in it, after trying (and failing) to use it. Stuck in this bright red phone box, in the middle of an open square, framed by the trees, like a goldfish being watched by a cat.

Filmed in a wide angle lens(?) giving distortion and aerial perspective to the phone box, its lines perfectly corresponding to the lines of an apartment building behind it.

Crowd soon gathers, some try to help him, to no avail. Even a strongman, bashing it with his massive shoulders, cannot free the guy, or even shatter the glass.

Convenient handyman proves to be not very handy at all. Fire department eventually shows up, before those responsible for installing the phone box return for it, put it on the back of a truck and drive off with it- and with the guy still trapped inside.

He is driven past another bald businessman in a screamingly loud necktie stuck in another identical phone box, also unable to free himself. Driven through burnt out industrial areas and scrap metal yards - and past a midget holding a ship in a bottle. He's even followed by a low flying helicopter, who refuses to (or is unable to) help him.

Interesting geometrical shapes framing the phone box prison throughout, film seems like a slightly overlong episode of The Twilight Zone.

Scarred me for life, but made me a film fan

[imdb-5596 · 10/10 · 17 May 2009]

There's little I can add to the other comments on the film. Like others, I saw it as a child and never got over it. I spent countless hours fruitlessly trawling google for a film called "man in a glass booth". Finally after a tip-off from the only other person I know who'd seen it, I found it on YouTube. It brought it all back in the short 30-odd wobbly minutes it lasts, and reminded me that this bizarre childhood experience is central to my love of film now.

I am convinced this was shown on more than one occasion by the BBC. The range of dates and ages given by other reviewers is too broad to be down to error (you *know* how old you were when you saw La Cabina). I saw it in the early 80s, but definitely later than 1980. Maybe it was a stock film the Beeb held in case they needed to fill in late night when the schedules ran awry.

OK it's dated a little, but not enough to detract from the effect. Which is profound.

But if you've read this far you've probably already seen it. If so *please log in and vote on this title*. The reviews have made me realise how valuable IMDb is. If you've any new views on interpretation, I think we'd all like to hear them. The mean score for La Cabina is so high it would rank in the top 100 on here if only it had enough votes. So give something back, create an account and vote on La Cabina and be part of the IMDb process. We might even finally get this "little dirty gem" the attention it deserves!

Definitely one to watch for...

[Rob_P · 5 September 2004]

I share a similar experience to many of the other posters regarding this short movie.

Late at night, over twenty years ago, flipping channels. I'm not a big fan of foreign language films but sometimes a rare gem comes along that never leaves you.

Despite having no real dialogue, you understand everything that is happening and you can follow the story from it's innocent beginnings to it's dark ending.

I have largely forgotten many of the details of this film, but it is the overall effect that stays with you long after the movie has finished.

I think the phone box was originally in a plaza and I remember the lorry ride with the hapless man on display in the over-sized 'fish bowl' for all to see.

One of those gems that rarely gets shown again. Definitely a contender for BBC FOUR to broadcast. Especially given it's short running time and provoking nature.

I think I'll email them!

one of the most memorable films ever ?

[simon-637 · 10/10 · 1 July 2005]

like many of the people commenting here, i'm one of the people who saw this film once in that very same screening late-night during the bbc2 sci-fi / horror season in the 80s as a last minute replacement in the schedule because something else overran.

i was extremely fortunate to see it again last night, after managing to finally track it down with bit torrent / isohunt ! what i find fascinating now reading all these reviews is the level of detail people have remembered it in on one viewing, posting 20 years later on to IMDb (& indeed, it having made such an impact on us all that 20 years on we even bothered to look it up) - not just the broad storyline of 'man trapped in phone box', but the details of how inviting the door was open at the beginning (the perfect angle, almost seductive), the clowns, the order in which different people tried to rescue him, & the passing of another trappee during the journey. i can barely remember star wars in that detail, never mind an (effectively) silent short ! the one thing which has changed for me between the memory i've carried for 20 years & what i saw last night is the speculation of what was actually going on - all this time what i've remembered is a story in which all the towns phone boxes mysteriously took on a murderous life of their own, but what struck me last night was the complicity of the phone company in the affair. were they the victims of the phone boxes too, or was something more sinister going on - had the phone company deliberately engineered the problem to cull the population for some reason ?

Classic cult weirdness

[Leofwine_draca · 10/10 · 9 November 2016]

THE TELEPHONE BOX is a short and suspenseful 30 minute television movie made in Spain in the early '70s that's barely been seen by anybody – apart from those lucky few who caught it on late-night television screenings back in the '70s and '80s. Despite its ultra-obscure reputation, this is actually a brilliant movie that prefigures PHONE BOOTH with a similar plot, although one that goes about it in a much more obvious way: unlike Colin Farrell, the protagonist here isn't trapped in the box by a sniper but by the simple fact that the door won't open!

This is a surreal horror experience all the way through. There's barely any dialogue, just crisp photography that emphasises the heat of the Spanish sun. Our central actor, Spanish TV veteran Vazquez, must display his emotion through expressions alone and a brilliant job he makes of it too. The pacing is just right and the direction flawless, gradually moving away from the initial humour of the situation into some of the weirdest, most claustrophobic horror ever put on camera. Those who have seen this remember it from the nightmarish climax, which is one of the most effective ever filmed, and what's worse is that there's no explanation as to what's going on: this is cult, TWILIGHT ZONE stuff, where the only rule is to expect the unexpected. A real treat for fans of the obscure, this.

La Cabina - a film not easily forgotten

[matt-akers · 10/10 · 28 August 2005]

Like so many of the other reviewers, I saw this film in the early eighties on BBC2 and have never managed to see it since. It's one of those films you see in your childhood and then later in life, wonder if you'd dreamt it. I'm glad to find I hadn't and that I'm one of a select band who remember that BBC2 showing!

It's a film you'd never forget once seen. Particularly the ending, which would disturb anyone, but especially an impressionable youngster. It's in that "surreal reality" style that Spanish filmmakers seem to do best and has continued since(eg 'Abre los ojos').

Although the first 45 minutes of the film portray what - to a degree - could be seen as "normality" (ie a man getting stuck in a phone box and the attempts to release him), I remember as a child a strange feel of unease throughout, even though I didn't know the ending. Maybe it's just my claustrophobia, but I think Antonio Mercero managed to maintain the ideal mix of "normality" and "strangeness" to keep you transfixed.

Quite why it's not been shown again on terrestrial in the UK is a mystery. Yes, it's disturbing, but so are a lot of films shown today. It's also a film of quality and one that I'd recommend to anyone who wants something different and something that will leave a lasting impression. Clearly from the points made by others this film does!

The Door

[Insane_Man · 7/10 · 18 November 2021]

A new telephone booth has been set in a place. A man enter to the telephone booth and tried to call someone. In the meantime, the door automatically locked. The man tries a lot to open the door from inside. Many passerby and the firefighters also tried a lot to open the door from outside. Thus, at last the telephone booth transfer to another place with the man in it to unlock or to... You have to see.

A little flick. Recommended 70%.

The stuff of nightmares...

[steven-87 · 10/10 · 22 June 2011]

I stumbled across this short film quite by accident on YouTube. Within 30 seconds I recognised it as "that" film I had seen in the early 80s and which terrified the life out of me. Even more amazed to find all these reviews on IMDb from people who must have seen it at the same time as me all those years ago and for whom the impact has not lessened in the slightest with the passage of time. Watching it again 30 years on, I find it not so much terrifying as extremely disturbing and with a very powerful message. I can interpret this movie in a number of ways but I believe it is telling the viewer that each of us, quite at random, can find their lives completely changed for the worse - and without hope of repair - by a whim of fate. That may be a fatal illness, an accident to ourselves or a loved one, or any number of such scenarios. The point being that a) it's as likely to happen to us as anyone else and b) we have to live with the consequences, however unfair or unjust they undoubtedly are. And, like the man in the phone box, we ask "but why me??" The real genius of this short film is that it supplies no answer to the question - nor does it even hint at one. For there is no answer.

Classic Cult Horror Short From Spain

[Theo Robertson · 8/10 · 30 October 2012]

Horror is often associated with Gothic imagery . Think of how many classic horror films have thunder storms sweeping over bleak desolate moorland and there in the middle of the frame lies a foreboding castle . But often banal everyday objects can be used for instruments of horror . Classic DOCTOR WHO was very good at this and one of my earliest memories was watching the story Terror Of The Autons where a child's doll came alive and tried to attack the Doctor's companion Jo Grant. The Pertwee era was full of this type of imagery where the banal suddenly became dangerous . It continues today and 35 years from now middle aged people will say they are instinctively frightened to look away from statues

LA CABINA follows this type of trend . Spain has a rich history of morbid cinema and perhaps this 1972 horror short is the closest the country came to having an equivalent of DOCTOR WHO . Everyone knows what a phone box is and before everyone had a mobile phone we all used a public phone box which were dotted around cities , towns and villages. No one gave them much thought and after seeing this LA CABINA you'll never look at a phone box in the same way again as the story starts off in a everyday manner and becomes more and more terrifying as an unnamed man finds himself trapped in one

Earlier tonight I saw a documentary by Mark Gatiss where he stated Spainish horror didn't confront its fascist past until Guillermo Del Toroarrived on the scene but I disagree . You don't have to read between the lines very much to realise LA CABINA is a statement on fascism . The trapped man could be a marrano converso or a leftist or any other undesirable living in a fascist regime . It's interesting too that the man's fate takes place for the most part in public and one wonders what excuses would be offered by the witnesses ? " I didn't hear anything , I didn't see anything , I didn't know what was going on " . It's also co-written by Jose Luis Garci whose later work often used the transition from Francoism to democracy as a theme

That said if anyone watched this as I did on Channel 4 sometime in the late 1980s the political subtext would be quickly forgotten by the audience but the gloomy ,doom laden ending wouldn't . I'd even forgotten what the title and I'm glad I've found out " The Spanish film about the man trapped in the telephone box " is called LA CABINA

Does for phone boxes what Psycho did for showers

[Tweekums · 9/10 · 8 July 2009]

I first watched this short film on television many years ago and have not forgotten the ending since then. Having just watched it for a second time it had lost none of its impact.

The film opens with workmen installing a new orange phone box to a town square. Soon after a man and his son walk past, once the boy has caught the bus the man enters the box to make a phone call. As he picks up the receiver the door slowly closes. The man is rather irritated when it turns out that the phone does not work, this is nothing however compared to how he feels when he can't open the door. Various passers by try to help him including children, the local strong-man, a workman, the police and finally the fire brigade. None however can open the door or even break the glass. Eventually the workman who installed the box return but instead of freeing the trapped man they take the box away on the back of a lorry. As they drive along they pass another lorry with a telephone box on and it too has a man trapped inside. Eventually the lorry enters a facility built into a mountain and the man is horrified to find himself in a large room full of identical phone boxes, each containing a dead body. The film ends with the workmen installing a new phone box in the square, leaving the door open ready to trap its next victim.

This film shows that it is possible to make for horror to be genuinely disturbing without any violence or gore. No explanation for the events is given or even hinted at, neither is there any indication that the man is anything other than the first person to enter the new box, giving the viewer the feeling that if it could happen to him it could happen to anybody. Although the film is in Spanish it is possible for anybody to enjoy it as there isn't much dialogue and it is easy to get the gist of what is being said anyway. If you want to see something creepy I'd recommend watching this, just be warned you won't want to use a phone box for quite a while afterwards.

From folks' analysis to Kafka's horror in half an hour

[devil_juanek · 10/10 · 9 January 2008]

I'm shocked. Not only because I have just watched this wonderful and sick film. Also because almost all commentators are English. And they saw the film only once! I guess that's just because comments here have to be written in English.

So let me add my Spaniard's point of view: I don't see symbols of modern world alienation, "incommunication" or anything such. Not in the 1st part of the film, at least. And, yes, you don't need to understand Spanish to get it right (though it helps). But maybe you need to know Spain.

Let me talk about the 1st part of the film (until the truck takes the poor guy away). That's a depiction of a man that falls in the misfortune of having bad luck in public. So he becomes *automatically* the district's laughing stock. People gather around him amused but mostly not helping. They don't even call for help. What's worst, they discourage attempts of help (i.e., the big man) and sharply bash the one who tried helping and failed at it. And there is also the cynicism in random comments of viewers.

See the circus people, which are often regarded as freaks, different ones: they are the only ones not laughing.

All that would have been all the same in a small village. I don't think it's about the big city and it's alienation. And the phone booth is just the means to develop the story, but I don't think it's a symbol of lack of communication.

When the police show up (by chance) they come showing their manners and attitude. Which perfectly fits in, given the historical period in Spain. You might find such manners in public forces in many other places, but this is all too normal in places under of after a dictatorship (of course, not only Spain). But the image of people is so right "in place", their aggressive attitude and lack of solidarity ... I don't know if you English speakers get what I mean. Or maybe Spain is not so "different" after all?

Whose gonna answer that?

[paddingtonoggs · 10/10 · 26 May 2005]

This film is as believable to a real life setting and atmosphere as it could possibly be. This is why its so scary at least I was. I first watched this film when I was about 4 years old! yes and I can still remember it, this was in the swinging seventies.

The plot if one can call it that is of a man using the phone box and becoming mysteriously trapped inside (The director really depicts the the claustrophobic cinematics absolutely to perfection)

The films plot basically centres around the anxiety of the man to be freed, and his gradual panic and fear as the film progresses in a very dark and evil manner.

This is also pulled of superbly well as is the similarities with the real world which gradually eats into the viewer, who if like me will begin to feel pretty queasy not because of any real horror imagery but because of the reality of the cinematography which the director beautifully portrays the film. The scariest movie I have ever seen! This one really does give me nightmares every time I'm brave enough to watch it! so don't say I didn't warn u if u suffer from any kind of nervous disposition.

Gotta find a copy of this short

[smoke-belch · 9/10 · 8 November 2009]

I watched it in the early 80s as a kid in England and still remember the shock of seeing the skeletons in all the other phone boxes and realising the poor bloke was doomed.

What's more scary is that like Deferenz I am a fellow casualty from watching Salem's Lot as a kid (in West Sussex too. So similar was his post to my experiences that I had to do a double check that his post wasn't one I'd written at some point in the past). Even as a 38 ish year old I still can't have the curtains open in the bedroom at night. As a kid I could scare myself sh!#less just by leaving the curtains open and waiting for a pasty faced mate with suspiciously pointy teeth to float up to my window and start scratching on it and saying "Hey Justin, open the window, let me in"

"La Cabina" - a classic in any language!

[sue-brown · 10/10 · 6 May 2006]

I first saw this 1972 short movie on TV in the late 70s. I was a young teenager and it haunted me for years. In the mid-80s I was lucky enough to record it from late night TV onto VHS, but alas, lost that tape years ago due to degradation. Stunning piece of movie imagery. Completely put me off using phone boxes for life!!! If you can hunt down a copy, buy it! There is a Director's Box set of DVDs available, but they are Spanish with no subtitles. I have just purchased a home-burnt DVD on eBay, and that is your best bet too.

If you haven't seen it and wonder what all the fuss is about, buy the movie and find out! You won't regret it. Of course, if you have seen it, you'll know what we are all freaking out about!!!

a long lost shocker

[a-bark · 9/10 · 13 June 2006]

Perhaps this film has suffered the same fate as the poor chap in the telephone box as it has sadly vanished without a trace. I was amazed to even find it on these pages. I have to agree with all that the other reviewer said about this sadly neglected shocker. I also caught it on the BBC, late night mixed in with horror double bills if my memory serves me well. It was a perfect example of a low budget short. Even, after all these years it still lingers in my memory. I wish it would be shown again, after all the recent screenings of the BBC's The Signalman and their M R James dramatisations were well received and La Cabina is as effective as those.