Shiver (Eskalofrío) review (DVD) ★★★

Santi suffers from the rare skin condition photophobia, making exposure to sunlight both painful and dangerous. Unhappy with his urban life, branded a freak by his classmates, he persuades his mother to start a new life in a remote mountain town safely ensconced in a valley where he can lead a more normal diurnal life.

But the reality is far from the idyll. Vicious killings start to take place in the forest, and Santi finds himself increasingly implicated in the gruesome death count. His quest to uncover the unidentifiable wild creature that he alone knows to be the culprit reveals a disturbing history behind the village's sleepy appearance. The death count is high, the gore grim, the tension fierce.

In many ways this is a standard horror flick (remote location, check; snarling shadow creature, check; revelation that human threat is at least as great as inhuman one, check) – and for the most part it is a hugely watchable one. Valverde gives a fantastic performance as the tormented Santi, beset by the dual threat of visceral disembowelment and equally murderous public opinion. But the place where we end up, while undoubtedly disturbing, is disappointingly neat with its logic; moreover, the film seems to play with a lot of genres and possibilities without ultimately plumping for any one.

At times there's a bit of a Wicker Man feel with the villagers, at one point it even goes Blair Witch Project with some camcorder action – but nothing sticks, and this gives the film an overall transient feel which makes it less engaging than it should be.