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Actor Penlope Cruz made a splash with a 1997 role, and was good enough to warrant playing the part again in a more famous remake. Born in Spain in 1974, Cruz is an actor who has appeared in both Spanish and English-language movies. She got her start in acting as a teenager, playing roles in music videos and one-off episodes of television throughout the early 1990s. She continued acting, predominantly in Spanish-language projects, throughout the 1990s.

In 1997, Cruz played the lead role of Sofia in the Alejandro Amenbar-directed film Open Your Eyes. The film stars Cruz as a young woman who becomes the love interest of a man who suffers from a car accident that results in him needing to have his face surgically rebuilt. In addition to Cruz, Open Your Eyes features a leading cast including Eduardo Noriega, Chete Lera, Fele Martnez, Najwa Nimri, and Gerard Barray. Cruz was praised for her role in the film,...

On the surface, there’s very little about either Open Your Eyes or Vanilla Sky that screams Erotic Thriller. Both Alejandro Amenábar’s 1997 Spanish original and Cameron Crowe’s 2001 American remake are frequently classified as psychological thrillers, or even dramas, due to their interest in exploring the downward spiral of the main character.

And yet, upon closer examination, both films owe a heavy debt to the tropes of the Erotic Thriller.

As we’ve previously explored in this editorial series, Erotic Thrillers embody the characteristics of Film Noir, albeit with a more contemporary perspective when it comes to sex and violence. There’s often a healthy dose of voyeurism and fetishism, typically embodied in doubles of characters (usually women). And, naturally, sex and death become intertwined as the desires of characters tend to result in dangerous consequences.

Nearly all of these elements are present in Open Your Eyes and Vanilla Sky.

We’ve been given the chance to debut this brand new trailer for a movie that up until now, we’ve not yet seen in the UK called The Contestant. The movie comes from director, Rodrigo Cortés who we saw last year directing Ryan Reynolds in the critically acclaimed movie, Buried.

Buried is released in the UK on DVD on 14th February and The Contestant could be yours a as part of HMV’s exclusive Rodrigo Cortes boxset edition of Buried DVD.

You can also join the official Buried Facebook page by clicking here.

Check out the brand new trailer for The Contestant below which features a cast that includes Leonardo Sbaraglia, Chete Lera, Miryam Gallego, Fernando Cayo, Myriam De Maeztu, Luis Zahera and Amaia Lizarralde.

Synopsis: Martín Circo Martín, young professor of History of Economics, has just become the winner of the most lucrative game show in the history...