The last film I watched before "La Cabina" was a thriller named "The Boat", and it was based on a successful short film. The short was amazing and tense, the full-feature film was mediocre. There aren't any links with this Spanish short film, except that "La Cabina" further proofs that short films are ideal for telling experimental horror/thriller ideas with a minimum of characters and terrifying themes that can afford themselves to remain largely unexplained. I certainly hope nobody will ever come up with the bright plan to remake "La Cabina" into a full-length film. Changes are slim, though, since it's already half a century old. And no, Joel Shumacher's "Phone Booth" starring Colin Farrell is not a remake.
Another bizarre little hobby of mine is pro-actively seeking out, here on IMDb mainly, movies from the 60s or 70s that left an everlasting impact on people during their childhood. In their user-comments, almost exclusively rated 10/10, you can read how they watched a certain movie on late-night television, and how it remained printed in their memories ever since. Or how a particular movie sparked their passion for the horror genre, or even cinema in general. Of course, I cannot share the same sentiments as these lovely people, since I often never even heard about the titles before, but I can always understand why these films are considered as personal favorites or milestones. Quite often this concerns made-for-TV movies, as the early 70s brought forward an immense load of life-altering and genuinely petrifying tales.
"La Cabina" is such a movie that changed the lives of many, and - admittedly - it's fantastic. It's an abstract and experimental short film from Spain. It can get compared to the very best episodes of "The Twilight Zone", maybe, but even then... The tone and especially the climax is a lot darker and more disturbing than anything that ever featured in TZ. Simple but effective, the plot of "La Cabina" revolves around a middle-aged man who tries out a newly installed phone booth in a little park and gets trapped inside. Bystanders, handymen, or even the police can't get him out of his little prison. Most people don't even try to help, though, as they only gather around to observe the spectacle and laugh. This particular detail makes "La Cabina" also a cynic but confronting satire. People just want to watch other people's misery. The ordeal for the trapped man even gets worse when the manufacturers of the booth come to pick him up for a humiliating drive across the city, and then still the worst is yet to come...
Modest but near-brilliant little slice of Kafkaesque TV-thriller, thriving entirely on unsettling atmosphere, the petrified grimaces of lead actor José Luis Lopéz Vázquez, and the knowledge the ending will be brute and merciless. I can only wish I watched it as a child in the early 70s.
