Al tercer día

Is a 2021 Argentine horror film. But to the one who understands. I've been watching horror movies for at least 35 years, it's rare that I don't get it like this. It's not ridiculous, huh. Meaningless. And it's also very boring. A mother and son who ran away from home get into a car accident. And then the boy suddenly disappears. His mother is trying to find him. Then a lot of meaningless events happen and it's over.

There is no sexuality and nudity in the film.

Mariana Angheleri is the only reason for my four star rating. She is much better than the material here. She is escaping from a domineering ex with her boy when she has a car accident. What follows is a mess. A priest recites the Apostles' Creed, thus, "on the third day." He goes on a bloody rampage without explanation. I can appreciate a good devil themed film such as The Exorcist or The Omen, but they had clear and concise story lines. On the Third Day is an incomprehensible mess.

RESERVED ONLY FOR HORROR FANS.

Very unique low budget film

On the 3rd Day is a great lesson in building suspense. Almost at the beginning of the film, we know something horrific has happened, but we don't know what. The filmmakers take a non-linear method of storytelling, relying primarily on flashbacks, in order to gradually reveal clues leading up to the final shocking moments. There is also a lot of unique mythos created for the film around some familiar concepts to horror fans, making things a bit more interesting. The pacing is perfect and the storytelling method perfectly keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. Anghileri gives an especially powerful performance as Cecilia, making sure the audience truly cares about what happened to her and her son. On top of that, On the 3rd Day has a beautiful musical score to add to the tension as well as delightfully disturbing practical effects. I will say, the practical effects for the final big reveal and an end-credit scene are not my favorite, but a majority of the film is near-perfect.

Where do I begin?

1. A bunch of characters who seem pretty unrelated and you have no idea what they have to do with one another.

2. Either dubbing from Spanish, or a drunk audio engineer.

3. Make up your mind: is it a demon or vampire movie, or something completely different?

4. The first 90% of the film had nothing scary and no relevance.

I only gave it 5 stars because the "monster" looked good.

For a movie that features some big heavyweights from the Argentinian acting scene, this movie feels incredibly amateurish.

The narrative is disjointed and jumbled, and the movie is edited with no sense of cointinuity, the story (nothing new or surprising to begin with) feels like a succession of unrelated scenes.

There are plenty of random oniric-like sequences peppered with fx that look like something from a 60's B horror movie, but not in a good way.

Furthermore, there's little to no explanation for anything that the protagonists do, they just wander from one scene to the next doing things because the script demands it (minor spoiler: ten minutes into the movie and just after a quick exchange between them, the doctor decides to take his patient to... a psychic? Why was he so eager to help her, in the first place?. De-rigueur hypnotism session ensues and we have a glimpse into what the big reveal is going to be, and boy, is so cliche and trite, and done with the subtlety and technical prowess of an elementary school play).

Acting, maybe with the exception of Gerardo Romano and the two cameo-length appearances by Arturo Bonín and Rodolfo Ranni, is mediocre.

It could have been a little scary B horror movie with a 60's feel to it, but it ended up being almost like a satire.