THE LAST MATINEE {2020}

 EYE REALLY ENJOYED M-EYE-SELF WITH THIS ONE! 

1993 Montevideo, Uruguay in the pouring rain.  Guy sits in his car and gets out a big jar of pickled eggs.  But they're not eggs.  They're eyeballs.  Guy eats an eyeball.  Num num nummers.  Guy loads up his red duffel bag and goes into the CineOpera movie theatre before the final matinee showing of the night begins.  Ana, an engineering student, goes to visit her projectionist grandfather at the end of his shift but his relief projectionist has bailed and he will have to work straight through.  Gramps has a bad cold so Ana calls him a cab and sends him home; she will operate the projector in his place which she does her studying in the projection booth.  A handful of people slowly occupy seats in the audience including a kid who is hiding so he won't be thrown out of the 'adults only' horror movie:  'FRANKENSTEIN:  DAY OF THE BEAST'.   Guy with the red duffel bag and the jar of pickled eyeballs starts knocking off the audience members. 

This fun Uruguayan/Argentinian co-production doesn't bring much new to the slasher genre except, perhaps, being really really good at creating characters we care about/are interested in before they start getting bumped off.  Each character in the audience is deftly drawn within the first 20 minutes or so of the film and we know who each of them is; as opposed to the often cookie-cutter bland anonymousness of many slasher film victims.  In fact, if there were no mad killer on the loose in the theatre, I would STILL want to watch a movie featuring these characters just talking and doing stuff for 2 hours!  That being said, I have a tremendous amount of goodwill for this movie and it's obvious affection for past slasher films and horror movies (particularly Lamberto Bava's DEMONS of which THE LAST MATINEE is reminiscent in it's 'horror film set in a movie theatre' vibe).  The film the audience is watching is funnily enough an actual horror film 'FRANKENSTEIN:  DAY OF THE BEAST {2011} directed by Ricardo Islas. 

It's quite a hoot to find out that Islas is himself playing the role of the Asesino Comeojos (Eye-Eater Assassin) in THE LAST MATINEE!!!  Besides Islas' fantastic performance, two other stand-outs are our heroine Ana (Lu Grasso) and audience member Angela (Julieta Spinelli) who both give top-notch performances.  The direction by Maximiliano Contenti is, for the most part, really good but he has a tendency to let some scenes drag on for longer than they should.  And by the final third of the film when those who survive up to that point (no spoilers) do things which any semi-conscious person would never do and waste much too much time talking than running or calling the police or arming themselves etc.  However, this in itself might be an homage to all those 80's slasher films in which victims did exactly the same sort of stuff.  So, I can't really fault it.  I probably rate this film higher than I should but it's just so damn charming and enjoyable that I can't help myself.  Oh, and at the beginning of the film when a kid is coming down the stairs and spills his bag of jaw breakers so that they tumble down the steps is a huge foreshadowing for what happens at the end of the film.  I won't say any more but I'll bet you can guess!  For those who know this film, it's the most-remembered scene.  So that makes TWO films during the Halloween Countdown that feature jaw breakers prominently (I refer you to my MARTIN post below).  THE LAST MATINEE is a welcome addition to my October viewing and I kinda loved it. 

And yes, the terrific Vinegar Syndrome blu ray also includes the complete feature film of FRANKENSTEIN: DAY OF THE BEAST as an extra feature!