Angustia a flor de piel

Un cruce lento pero impresionante entre el slasher y el terror gótico, que se desarrolla en su mayor parte en el edificio de un siniestro sanatorio donde sale a la luz un viejo secreto familiar. El tema no es nada rompedor, por supuesto, pero la fuerza de esta ozploitation es sobre todo la garra de la dirección de Tony Williams, cuyo sentido de la construcción de la atmósfera y de las florituras visuales (memorables tomas a cámara lenta y secuencias oníricas), combinadas con el trabajo de cámara de Gary Hansen y la punzante partitura de Klaus Schulz, pueden resultar impresionantes. También me sorprendió la actuación de la protagonista (Jacki Kerin), cuya rabia e impotencia hacia el final me creí por completo, y hacía tiempo que no veía una histeria tan auténtica (recordé la clásica huida de Marilyn Burns en La matanza de Texas). Una película de terror de buena calidad que puedo recomendar. (06.01.2019)

Very well made Australian horror movie. In several scenes the atmosphere is so good that I felt hints of fear. Unfortunately, it drags quite a lot (not only) from the beginning. (23.06.2011)

All the time I was thinking: Is this an Australian horror? It has so much in common with Italian giallo, even with great music, that I had to make sure of it. Excellently tuned mysterious horror, which is labeled as a slasher, but the giallo label suits it better. It's not explicit, well, not much, but it is more atmospheric and scary. (21.01.2015)

Tony Williams manages to extract more than you would expect from an unknown director from a bland gothic haunted house tale full of hackneyed clichés. Just the fact that the film is set in the middle of the Australian outback makes it special in itself. It's an Australian film, but it feels very European. Most memorable, however, is its obscure atmosphere, evoking a sense of vague menace whose origins are not clear until the end of the film. The moments of greatest terror, shot in slow motion, have a surreal and otherworldly quality. The frequent steadicam passages through corridors and dreamy bathroom scenes are a little reminiscent of Kubrick's The Shining, but without feeling like the film is ripping it off. You can tell in every shot that it was carefully planned, and the sets of the house where the film takes place were all carefully tailored to everything. All that's missing to make Next of Kin a horror masterpiece is a more polished plot. The film wasn't seen by many audiences in its time, and if it wasn't for Quentin Tarantino (who considers it the best Australian film ever made), it would probably have fallen into obscurity. But it will finally be dusted off in full glory on Blu-ray this summer, along with other Australian genre gems. (14.05.2018)