Get ready to hear about a film that set box office records in Venezuela and became the all-time highest grossing thriller in that country, owing to notable creativity that has since been admired worldwide. Few in the U.S. have heard of the horror mystery "The House at the End of Time" (NR, 1:41). There are good reasons for that, but there are equally good reasons to hear about it now. The film, titled "La casa del fin de los tiempos" in Spanish, first premiered at the Venezuelan Film Festival in June of 2013, followed by a nationwide release in that country. In 2014, the film made its way through film festivals and both limited and nationwide releases across Europe and South America as well as in the U.S., where it received the top award at two different festivals. The movie has since appeared at other festivals, including as the closing presentation at Houston's Venezuelan Film Festival (August 11-15, 2015). Given the government controls on the media in the film's country of origin and the unique nature of the film's storytelling, seeing this movie on a big screen in the U.S. is a special treat.
The film opens with a woman lying consciousness on the floor in her home. She is just beginning to stir. Her face has been slashed and she is lying amongst pieces of a broken mirror. She picks up and looks into one of the larger pieces to examine the wounds on her face. Then that jagged chunk of mirror becomes a dagger as she cautiously but anxiously searches the rest of the dark house for her family. In the basement, she finds her husband lying dead in a pool of blood. She then sees her son standing near a doorway across the room. He appears unhurt. She calls to him and he tentatively takes a couple small steps towards her, but is then suddenly and inexplicably swept backwards through the doorway. The door slams shut and the boy is gone. The woman, whose name is Dulce (Ruddy Rodriguez), is promptly arrested, tried and sentenced for the murder of her husband, Juan José (Gonzalo Cubero) and the presumed murder of her son, Leopoldo (Rosmel Bustamante), who is still missing and is presumed dead.
30 years later, an elderly Dulce is released from prison to serve the rest of her sentence under house arrest back in the same spooky old house where her husband was murdered and her boy disappeared. There are two police officers (Alexander Da Silva and William Lodoño) guarding the house's front gate and the only person allowed to visit the old woman is a priest (Guillermo Garcia) and only at certain prearranged times. Dulce treats the young priest with barely concealed contempt, having lost her faith in God long ago, and still bitter over losing three decades of her life because of a crime she says she did not commit. Despite all this, Dulce begins to tell the incredulous priest her side of the story.
Through flashbacks, we get a picture of what life was like in that house before tragedy struck. Dulce is in a loveless marriage with Juan José, a man she no longer respects due to his ongoing unemployment and repeated empty promises to find a job. The couple has two sons, Leopoldo, and the younger Rodrigo (Hector Mercado), who are typical boys and get along as well as a typical brothers do, which is to say
sometimes. Life isn't particularly happy in this house, but it isn't particularly unusual, until strange things start happening to the family. Unexplained noises are heard and apparitions appear, most notably, an old woman who warns the family of a tragic future which lies ahead. As Dulce tells the priest her story and he does some research on the unusual history of that house, it becomes clear that everything that happened to Dulce and her family is tied together and has something to do with their family home.
"The House at the End of Time" is original and appropriately creepy, but is a bit too ambitious for its own good. Although the unraveling of the mystery reminds me of one particular horror movie (which I'll refrain from naming in order to avoid a possible spoiler), writer-director Alejandro Hidalgo takes the concept much farther than I've ever seen similar ideas taken before. Unfortunately, in doing so, the plot and its resolution become very complicated and leave crucial questions unanswered. This film was made for a very small budget, which doesn't really hurt the film's quality, but doesn't excuse the distractingly frequent typos in the English subtitles. This film shows that a good idea is the most important ingredient for a successful movie, but filmmakers also need to be sure their reach doesn't exceed their grasp. "B"
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