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Normally I would review a Spanish movie on, well, Spanish, but since I’ve been writing about these surgeon thriller/horror movies in English, I’ll keep doing that.
“Gritos en la noche” was the fourth of its kind that I watch, first in a kind of long line of movies from its director, starring the same actor performing the same character, which I don’t intend to consume more of because I only care about movies with this kind of premise, and it’s thought to be the first Spanish horror movie, so I guess it has some kind of historical value in it, it’s otherwise not good nor very memorable nor really worth a watch, but at least it’s a vast improvement on the previous attempt of making something like “Eyes Without a Face”.
First, it was a return to the gothic aesthetic that was absent in Seddok, and second, it combines the plots from both movies from 1960, and although it also includes silly comedy from the very beginning, it improves both the plot structure and the writing by having the police being active from the beginning, and from having actual witnesses that contribute to the investigation, instead of being comic relief characters, or be completely absent in the story, making the setting to feel artificial and poorly established.
Another interesting thing is how the assistants want to take down the awful doctor for how he mistreats them, thus giving them an agenda instead of being just plot devices.
And another improvement is how the abducted girl and final victim is part of the investigation from the very beginning, as the girlfriend of the police inspector, instead of just a poor damsel in distress, or a plot device that’s used by the police. Oh, and also, the male assistant is used from the beginning, to fool and confuse the officers by making them chase after two completely different men.
Unfortunately those improvements still don’t make it a good movie, not even comparable to the first one “Eyes Without a Face”, because the original understood than simple is better in terms of execution, and there’s no point in adding elements that could make a more complex and better movie, if you don’t use them properly. This film does that, and ends up being another failure instead.
Since the secondary characters aren’t unaware of the crimes for most of the movie and are an active part of the plot, the writing had to come up with some way for the villain to not get caught, and here is the big issue within the plot of the movie. The scientist seems like a magician, somehow able to appear and disappear in a matter of seconds in front of other characters, as does his much less intelligent assistant, apparently, somehow, and that felt like a very cheap way to keep the plot from moving forward on an organic way.
But most importantly, even though its plot was better than every alternative that came afterwards, what “Eyes Without a Face” understood that later movies didn’t, is that it wasn’t the writing what was going to make it work and worth a watch, it was the human drama in it. Over there I could buy the villain’s desire to help his daughter, and she herself was the best character in that movie. Here, I got nothing, no downtime is given to flesh out the cast and no chemistry exist between them even in the few scenes that count as such. When I was watching the scientist doing what he did, and while I was seeing him talk to his daughter, I never felt that one thing was done for the sake of the other, because there’s no decent character interactions between them.
And the secondary characters, despite having an agenda on their own, are either incompetent for the sake of delaying the outcome through plot conveniences, or are left as completely passive characters with nothing to do, and it’s a shame because it ruined possible interesting character dynamics and plot points.
And the resolution was very disappointing and unsatisfactory in terms of both plot and characters, there were sequels that needed to be done, and no character was given enough importance, so the way the movie ends leaves you feeling absolutely nothing.
Despite all its wasted potential for being a proper horror movie and an “Eyes Without a Face” alternative, I still think “Gritos en la noche” is a watchable enough film thanks to its numerous improvements, over the poor attempt that was “Seddok”, and two more later titles that were on the same level or were even worse.
5/10
