Cold Sweat (Sudor Frío) (2011)
Starring Facundo Espinosa, Marina Glezer, Camila Velasco, Omar Musa, Noelia Vergini
Directed by Adrián García Bogliano
Before the inevitable review of Cold Sweat follows, it should be noted that this is the first Argentinian horror film to be distributed in the South American country in more than forty years. To put that in perspective, director Adrian Garcia Bogliano asked the audience at a midnight screening at SXSW to imagine that the last horror film they saw in theaters was Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Regardless of the overall quality of Cold Sweat, the fact that the people of Argentina have an opportunity to be frightened in the theater again is reason enough to celebrate.
As part of the SXFantastic programming at SXSW this year, Cold Sweat pits the trappings of youth culture against the old guard of South American politicos, resulting in a race for survival involving three twenty-somethings desperately trying to escape a house of horrors controlled by two geriatric terrorists who still have a penchant for pain. A concerned man (Facundo Espinosa) is worried about his ex-girlfriend (Camila Velasco), who has recently disappeared without a trace. Together, he and his best friend, Ali (Marina Glazer), vow to find her with the help of clues pieced together from e-mails and a connection that both women have with a blonde-haired hunk on an online dating site.
In reality, this is all an elaborate ruse set up by the last two members of an extreme terrorist group whose frustration with today’s youth leads them to devise a torture chamber where both men – now decrepit and elderly – can still pretend they are fighting for a cause that is no longer important. The tools the two implement to torture are what makes the film unique, and it’s also what gives the sequences most of their dramatic tension.
The three members of Generation X are forced to explore the bowels of the house they are trapped in, which leads to some horrific discoveries that reveal these two men have been hard at work for quite some time. Not only do they have to battle the ghoulish byproducts created by the past cruelty of these men, they must also pass undetected.
Unfortunately, the film doesn’t go beyond that simple plotline. The opening sequence promises more of an in-depth explanation as to why these geezers are inflicting so much pain, and an underlying backstory provides a history that is never fully explored. Because of this, Cold Sweat becomes a simple tale of survival when it could’ve added a much deeper mythology into the mix. Coming in at around eighty minutes, the premise is interesting enough that it could have benefited from a longer running time that delves into the real motivations of these sadistic soldiers that still believe the horror they’re inflicting is for the greater good. Instead, the aging terrorists and their physical limitations are played up for laughs at times, and their lack of purpose reduces them to stereotypical mad men in the end.
That being said, the battle between generations still proves thrilling at times, as the victims are forced to move almost as slowly as their aging captors for fear of certain death – since any sudden move could result in an explosive chemical reaction. Bogliano, Cold Sweat’s director, has just announced that his next film will be a remake of the 1968 cult classic Vagabundo en la Lluvia (Drifter in the Rain), so at the very least it appears as though Argentina has its very own horror auteur to take pride in.
2 out of 5
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