Infiesto

Infiesto is s small mining town in the province of Asturias, in northwest Spain. The time is the end of winter, a dark, rainy, melancholic season. The lead characters are Inspector Samuel (male) and Subinspector Castro (female). The movie opens with the roadside appearance of a teenager, alive, kidnapped long ago and presumed dead.

The first half is rather good; it shows routine police work with frustrating leads, abundance of dead ends and uncooperative witnesses. It also shows in passing the heavy industry that pollutes the air and defiles the verdant, idyllic landscapes of Asturias with open pits, denuded hillsides and smokestacks.

However, the story veers midway into horror movie territory. Improbabilities and impossibilities pile up and, what could have been a good police procedural slides into the (unintentionally) funny. Direction, cinematography and acting are good, but they can's cope with the material. The time frame of the action is the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and this is brought into play but is mostly inessential to the action.

I was intrigued by the choice of a town with the strange name Infiesto. It is close to infesto (I infest) and to Infierno (hell), both pertinent to the happenings in the movie.

This film opens on day one of the Covid lockdown in Spain. A young woman who has been missing, presumed dead, for several months turns up in Infiesto, a small mining town in the Asturian Mountains. She is alive but not speaking. Police officers Inspector Samuel Garcia and his sergeant, Marta Castro are investigating her kidnapping. It soon becomes clear to them that this was more than an isolated kidnapping by a lone culprit. The more they discover the more disturbed they are and the disappearance of another girl gives them a sense of urgency.

I thought this was a solid enough crime thriller, perhaps not a must see but a decent enough addition to the genre. It starts well and the tension escalates nicely as we learn more about the crimes and the perpetrators. Having it set against the backdrop of the enforced lockdown wasn't really necessary but nor did it detract; having so few people about added to the atmosphere. The atmosphere was already pretty good due to the remote location and overcast or rainy weather. The central story isn't the most original but there is only so much one can do in a popular genre. The cast is solid, especially Isak Férriz and Iria del Río, who play Garcia and Castro respectively. Overall a decent enough film for fans of Euro-crime dramas.

These comments are based on watching the film in Spanish with English subtitles.

Infiesto: What at the outset looks like a film about a serial killer/kidnapping ring morphs into a Spanish Folk Horror thriller. It begins in march 2020 just as the covid lockdowns were first implemented. A girl who has been missing for nearly 3 months suddenly turns up. She has escaped from her abductors but is traumatised, remembers little. Two detectives who themselves are suffering from family separation due to the quarantines and curfews investigate the case and soon connect it to other missing young people. Strange characters are encountered and the obvious assumption is that a people trafficking gang is at work. But strange symbols are observed and the words of suspects suggest that a Cult with a hidden leader is involved. Sacrifices to appease an Old God, the coming of The End Times are all in the mix with the pandemic itself. The Asturias mountains where the detectives hunt for the Cult members and their victims provide a stark and eerie background. From old farm barns through the woods and pursuit along narrow roads, Cultists determined not to be taken alive must be pursued. Quite violent and gory in parts but much of the horror is psychological. This film could have been fleshed out and would have benefited from a twenty minute extension to it's 97 minute running time. Written and directed by Patxi Amezcua. On Netflix. 8/10.

This was an alright spanish thriller. Iv'e seen bettee but as far as im concerned this was still great. For me however the only thing that let this movie down really was the dubbing. I didnt understand why it was overally acted and it therefor made the script sound a little unpolished aswell. But looking past that lets get to the actual film. Its all about this young girl that turns up after being missing for three months. The lead detectives try to find out who was responsible for the capture and within this find out it might be part of even bigger thing. The cast of this movie were good and interesting to watch. The plot was pretty good and was entertaining. Overall a pretty good thriller.

There's been thousands of films just like this one, done much better, so what was the point of any of this? Having it take place over the pandemic was also pointless, especially melodramatically naming the days of the lockdown like chapters that are supposed to mean something to the story's significance, because they didn't. Trying to convince the viewers the antagonists motives were a result of the pandemic was a far stretch, even to the best of imaginations. I kept waiting for some big twist or big reveal, and it never came. The entire story was just a waste of 96 minutes. What made this even more frustrating was the abysmal lack of basic policing protocols, because every crime scene both cops were at they had their paws all over the evidence. Did the producers forget that cops are supposed to wear latex gloves at crime scenes? Never mind there's a pandemic going on and they're still touching everything in sight lol. And in the final act when the female cop goes down the shaft, she's breathing so loud and heavy like she was the victim that was scared to death, and not a trained cop. This entire production was amateur-hour and a complete waste of time. It was a pointless and frustrating watch. It's a generous 4/10 for the somewhat believable performances and the decent cinematography, score and tone the film had.