El matadero

The typically adorable 80s, very violent, with a pinch of black humour and drowning in references to classic slashers; in this case, mostly The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The protagonists are a father-son duo who are closer to pigs than people (especially the grunting and sweaty kid, a redneck par excellence), and a group of teenagers whose intelligence is at the level of a ten year-old child who was dropped on his head as a baby. What I enjoy about films like this is mostly the cruel exaggeration and the creative setting of otherwise trite scenes, but there’s very little that can be called juicy in this one (the guilty-pleasure quality holds only in the final 15 minutes, a couple of effective references and one brilliant piece of editing while slashing a neck that brings a lump to my throat every time I cut a tomato). (22.10.2018)