Review by Doug Cooper
Stars Elena Anaya, Nea Segura, Mar Sodupe, Andres Herrera, Miriam Correa,
Hugo Arbues, Raquel Salvador, Kaiet Rodriguez, Tomas del Estal | Written by Javier Gullon
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £22.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 89 minutes | Directed by Gabe Ibanez
According to the press notes for this subtitled Spanish chiller, it is "emotionally devastating, visually stunning and truly terrifying, in the tradition of JA Bayona's The Orphanage and Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth". Nice try guys, but no cigar.
Don't get me wrong, though, Hierro isn't bad at all, but it simply isn't in the same league as those other two worthy releases. It tries, and fails, to scare, and the attempts at jolting you out of your seat fall flat. But director Gabe Ibanez, here making his feature length debut, does generate a foreboding atmosphere and there are a couple of effectively exciting sequences along the way.
It boasts a first class performance from Elena Anaya, here playing a loving and caring mother who goes on a ferry trip to the island of Hierro accompanied by her young son. En route she falls asleep and wakes up to find that he has disappeared. No sign of him anywhere on the boat. 18 months later she and her sister return to the island to identify a dead body, having been told that it is that of her offspring. But it's not. So far, so mysterious.
After being told that she has to spend the weekend on the island, she goes on a trek and finds a dilapidated caravan near the beach. Who is the odd German woman who resides there? Could she perhaps give a clue as to her son's whereabouts?
It plays like an episode of The Twilight Zone in some respects and an ominous feeling is well maintained, but the script is too padded and drawn out to engage. It's never as intriguing or as involving as it should be despite the judicious editing in certain fright moments. The music score is overdone and overused at times and the whole enterprise is finally too overwrought to be truly unsettling. It's a decent enough try though, and Ibanez certainly displays potential in fashioning dark atmospherics.
EXTRAS Just the theatrical trailer