Rating: *1/2
Starring: German Baudino, Paula Brasca, Mirta Busnelli
So what we have here is Argentina's take on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, only less of the legendary 1974 original or its passable remake franchise and more of one or two of the bad sequels that came out throughout the years. Yay?
A gang of six Argentine teenagers are enroute to Villa Especuén, a town in the province of Buenos Aires that was completely flooded by a salt lake in 1985 after a period of heavy rainfall, to film a documentary about the disaster. Little do they know, a small family of animal skull-wearing murderers are roaming around the town's ruins looking for victims to slaughter and it isn't too long before, after a few shenanigans involving roach-crawled meat pies and a hostile gas station experience, our youthful group cross their path. As the family kidnaps the teens one by one, hauling them back at their dilapidated hideout, what soon follows is a deranged debauchery of gory murders, cannibalism and rape as night falls and madness reigns.
Now, I'm sure there is a decent movie to be found in Los Olvidados seeing some of the gore effects are awesome and the filmmakers did made some good use to the ruin-like town in terms of creating atmosphere, but that's all the positives I can muster out for this film. As mentioned, the movie took a lot of liberties from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, particularly the matter of fact that its villains are a family of blabbering individuals driven by hunger and insanity, but it lacks genuine creepiness and catharsis as none of the characters, including our protagonist group, are interesting or likable, coming out as crude, paper-thin and/or disgusting to a near-parody level.
This lack of care for its characters other than making them meat for the slaughter that borderlines whether they deserve it or not sadly shows the absence of a creative streak for its story, which doesn't help the matter that some of the movie's editing either ruins the pace or breaks the tone of the plot. Thus, Los Olvidados, while not a complete mess for its gore and camera work, is quite a boring watch for its reliance on gore and shock factor in favor over building decently fair characters, more complex villains and a smarter twist on a basic "cannibal family" exploitation flick.
It's horror that simply exists for the sake of existing and nothing else, so I wouldn't really bother much with this if I were you.
Bodycount:
1 female bashed on the head with a barbwire wrapped bat
1 male had his head pulped with a barbwire-wrapped bat
1 dog found impaled on a stake
1 male disemboweled with a knife
1 male hacked on the back with an axe
1 male stabbed with a knife
1 female had her throat slit with a broken bottle
1 male stabbed through the jaw with a dagger
Total: 8
A gang of six Argentine teenagers are enroute to Villa Especuén, a town in the province of Buenos Aires that was completely flooded by a salt lake in 1985 after a period of heavy rainfall, to film a documentary about the disaster. Little do they know, a small family of animal skull-wearing murderers are roaming around the town's ruins looking for victims to slaughter and it isn't too long before, after a few shenanigans involving roach-crawled meat pies and a hostile gas station experience, our youthful group cross their path. As the family kidnaps the teens one by one, hauling them back at their dilapidated hideout, what soon follows is a deranged debauchery of gory murders, cannibalism and rape as night falls and madness reigns.
Now, I'm sure there is a decent movie to be found in Los Olvidados seeing some of the gore effects are awesome and the filmmakers did made some good use to the ruin-like town in terms of creating atmosphere, but that's all the positives I can muster out for this film. As mentioned, the movie took a lot of liberties from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, particularly the matter of fact that its villains are a family of blabbering individuals driven by hunger and insanity, but it lacks genuine creepiness and catharsis as none of the characters, including our protagonist group, are interesting or likable, coming out as crude, paper-thin and/or disgusting to a near-parody level.
This lack of care for its characters other than making them meat for the slaughter that borderlines whether they deserve it or not sadly shows the absence of a creative streak for its story, which doesn't help the matter that some of the movie's editing either ruins the pace or breaks the tone of the plot. Thus, Los Olvidados, while not a complete mess for its gore and camera work, is quite a boring watch for its reliance on gore and shock factor in favor over building decently fair characters, more complex villains and a smarter twist on a basic "cannibal family" exploitation flick.It's horror that simply exists for the sake of existing and nothing else, so I wouldn't really bother much with this if I were you.
Bodycount:
1 female bashed on the head with a barbwire wrapped bat
1 male had his head pulped with a barbwire-wrapped bat
1 dog found impaled on a stake
1 male disemboweled with a knife
1 male hacked on the back with an axe
1 male stabbed with a knife
1 female had her throat slit with a broken bottle
1 male stabbed through the jaw with a dagger
Total: 8
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