This
surprisingly tame Spanish import doesn’t look as bad as it is boring. Relying
on a screenplay that fancies itself an enlightening foray into the mind of a
madman, the film is actually overbearing and snob, with no suspense to grip us
and no real insight as to the actual mindset of the protagonist. Add to that
some atrocious editing and you’ve got a would-be Henry that falls flat on its face, dragging the viewer not in a
actual depths of the human psyche, but up in the arms of Orpheus.
Antonio Frau: rarely has a chainsaw-totting, self-rigtheous
mass-murderer been so uninteresting.
Our story
opens on a jealous young man strangling his girlfriend to death following what
seems to be a recurring argument. This young man turns out to be the titular
anti-hero. Years later, after being released from prison, he moves in a large
guesthouse inherited from his aunt. That’s where he puts his long-matured plan
into execution: to chronicle his exploits as a serial rapist and killer of
streetwalkers. Convinced that he has some sort of divine authority over the
prostitutes living in the surrounding neighborhood, he proceeds to equip one of
the guest rooms with plastic-covered walls and a large table with four leather
straps. That’s where he brings his unwilling guests to indulge in their
suffering and to preach endlessly, all the while living a double life alongside
his newly married wife and keeping a diary of his activities for posterity. At
some point, a police detective gets involved in all this, adding yet another
voice-over to the over-saturated soundtrack. As for the would-be clever denouement, it could’ve worked if only we had been given reasons to care for what is ultimately a
despicable, highly uninteresting protagonist.
I rented H6 mostly out of curiosity, wishing for
a traumatizing torture porn title to darken my nights. I was particularly intrigued
by the 18+ rating showcased on the box. That turned out to be a dud. The gore
here is actually very light, consisting of little more than suggested
dismemberment, splashing blood and dispersed body parts. There is some
cannibalism involved, but it merely stands as one of the many random quirks of
the protagonist. There is some sex also, but nothing really decadent,
especially since our murderous friend doesn’t feel the need to remove his
victims’ panties before raping them. He merely squirms over them, like a slug.
There is no real passion to it. Nothing palpable at any rate. The guy is
actually much more expressive when reading from his diary than in any of the
torture sessions in the film. So if you get more of a kick out of watching some
guy tend to his diary rather than watching him kill people, then H6 is the film for you, especially since there are also some neat
“page-turning” wipes to go along with the central “diary” idea. As far as novelty is concerned, these wipes could actually prove to be the most exciting technical feat here, which should tell you about the level of this thing...
The killer sluggishly squirms over his victims
while preaching abstinence...
As the
drama began to unfold, I was pleased to discover the central setting through a
series of asymmetric shots, each taken from an unusual angle, and each
featuring telling details about the guesthouse. Hence, we are shown a single
wooden leg gathering dust, a luxuriant spiral staircase and some dilapidated
rooms covered with incongruous art. The fragmentation of space immediately
creates a labyrinthine space in which the story can take root. It also mirrors
the psychological instability of the killer, which we infer from the opening
sequence. It’s all well and good up to this point, but the film then quickly
unravels and crumbles under the weight of its poor penmanship and some ill-advised
directorial decisions.
You see,
the fragmentation of space used to unveil the intriguing central setting turns
out to be ever-present, even in the most banal dialogue scenes. Hence, the
camera angle changes every few seconds, even when totally unwarranted by the
scene. This is not only annoying from a visual standpoint, but it is also
detrimental to any coherent sense of space or any atmospheric concern. Since
the camera never lingers on anything, nothing seems to ever have sensual
interest. Nothing is ever scrutinized, nor does any of the victims succumb to
the lingering power of the camera's gaze, one of the most powerful weapons in the horror film arsenal. What this eventually points out to is a lack of directorial
assertiveness in depicting space or pacing the action. The dubious
decision to have torture scenes intercut with diary-writing scenes or boring
domestic scenes also undermines any true sense of horror that could ever have
come out of the narrative. No intensity is to be found with these constant
cuts. All that is left is a bland exposé of the killer’s actions in the
perspective of creating an engrossing narrative from what is actually a detestable protagonist and his dubious pastimes.
Great, but unrealized potential for the labyrinthine
interiors of Frau's squalid guesthouse.
Now, I’ve
said that the fragmentation of space helped define the psychological
instability of the protagonist. Unfortunately, that psychological instability
also turned out to be a dud. Actually, the morbidly passionate character we
met in the opening sequence is nothing like the assertive and controlled
character we meet on the other side of his prison sentence. Depicted as a
mastermind of macabre pursuits, this “new” Antonio is supposed to come off as a
likeable, almost Tarantino-esque bad guy with a master plan to leave us in awe.
He is NOT the unstable madman that the mise-en-scène first suggests.
But while his endless preaching and philosophizing is meant to imbue his character with a sense of
purpose, it actually has the contrary effect. The weak, unconvincing arguments he uses to justify his actions are actually delivered by the killer as pearls of wisdom, at once too articulate to suggest madness and too ridiculous to suggest sanity. This creates a disturbing
discrepancy between the character's endless resolve and what is essentially a near-total lack of sound motivation, pointing out to
nothing more than a badly conceived piece of filmmaking, one that has
pretension in spades, but no means to bring them to fruition in any sort of coherent narrative.
From a screenwriting
standpoint alone, the film is quite weak, defusing almost all of its attempts at
foreshadowing and thus creating a chaotic narrative full of red herrings. As I mentioned earlier, the
very opening sequence is misleading in its depiction of an impulsive wife-beater, which is then painstakingly established as a
calm, composed murderer. Then, there is the issue with his wife’s infidelity,
which seems to prefigure an explosive denouement, or at least a heated
confrontation that never happens. As for the fact that the protagonist
constantly contradicts himself, praising abstinence for example, then raping a
bound victim scant moments later, it wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t ultimately
portrayed as a calculating and self-controlled mastermind, which itself
contradicts the way he was set up in an endless loop of awful characterization. Other important plot points are only briefly
mentioned, such as the study of Law undertook by the killer during his stay in
prison, the fact that the detective on the dead prostitutes’ case is actually
the same detective who put him in jail. The very nature of the protagonist’s
mental state is never convincingly laid out, nor is it ever manifested in any
intriguing way. All of this makes him a very unlikable lead, and as the sole fleshed-out character in the story, a very weak link to hold the screenplay together.
White clothes are not nearly enough to exonerate
the serial rapist of 18 women...
the serial rapist of 18 women...
With a very
intrusive score featuring loads of classical pieces tacked on to better imbue this exploitation film with a false sense of nobility,
the entire enterprise seems discordant and unfinished. Add to that some highly
unwelcome voice-over narration from three, count them, three different sources (the
killer, his wife and the police detective) and you’ve got a confused narrative
that never manages to generate interest despite some serious delusions of
grandeur. This could have been saved with some suspense, a basic sense of
pacing, or any sort of powerful imagery, gory or otherwise, but all of these
are also found lacking. The end result is a tedious yawner with no redeeming
value but great settings and some decent photography, both of which are lost
on an atrocious and pretentious screenplay featuring one of the most unlikable
anti-heroes since Freddy Krueger started talking only in one-liners.
1/5 Some decent photography and luxuriant settings can’t save a pretentious, flawed and tedious screenplay filmed with no sense of pacing and
no knack for tension-building.
