PARANORMAL XPERIENCE 3D (2011)

Directed by Sergi Vizcaino, Starring: Amaia Salamanca, Maxi Iglesias, Luis Fernandez, Horror, Spain, 2011, 87mins, cert 18.

With the vague promise that their grades would be looked at again, five underachieving psychology students are persuaded by their professor to undertake a paranormal investigation in an old abandoned mining town. Needing suitable transport, Angela (Amaica Salamanca) invites her younger (van owning) bartending sister Diana along with the enticement: “Those things always interested you...”
The sister’s relationship seems strained, perhaps in some way related to a memory of their deceased father, but Diana (Alba Ribas) comes through with the van and off they all pop on their merry haunt.   

According to their somewhat unorthodox professor, the town of Susurro was once prey to an evil doctor (Dr. Matarga) who tortured and killed over 20 of the townsfolk after the war. When the mines were re-opened in 1963, workers reported feeling a presence before the gruesome discovery of the bodies of 5 dead miners. Is the paranormal presence of Dr. Matarga merely a collective figment of the imagination or is there something more tangible visceral and deadly lurking in the dusty abandoned town of Susurro?

Made back in 2011, this Spanish stereoscopic splatter flick is perhaps most notable for featuring a plethora of jawdroppingly unsubtle SONY product placements. In fact a more appropriate title would’ve been: ‘Product placement Experia’ after the smart phone so prominently featured in the first third of the film (and yet curiously completely forgotten about when help is required later on down at the old spooky mining town) Then there’s the SONY laptop which is carefully carried throughout to show us the logo at every opportune moment, and would you believe it, there’s also a video camera (guess what make?). At least the found-footage aspect is limited to a few short sequences (and to be fair one of these is key to the plot).

The attractive nubile young cast look like they’ve all just come straight from a telenovela (glamorous Spanish soap-opera), but the script doesn’t require them to stretch their thespian abilities beyond looking fit and trading uninspiring insults with each other. And when they’re not auditioning for Calvin Klein underwear commercials they’re being dispatched in (mostly) decently executed practical gore set-pieces. I say mostly, for there is one CGI effect which is so spectacularly shoddy it almost single-handedly undoes all the good make-up work that has gone before it.

The design of the not-so-good doctor is nicely executed, a sort of cross between the mask from THE HILLS RUN RED, with ‘Tony’ from TOTAL RECALL (1990). There’s an impressive piece of handiwork performed with a meat hook (which would surely impress even ‘Candyman’ himself), and pithy one-liners sound so much better in Spanish, e.g. “Bonito culo!” (nice ass).

Surprisingly, the majority of the film takes place during the bright sunny Spanish daylight, which somewhat dilutes the atmosphere. (Perhaps it was feared all those SONY labels wouldn’t be discernible in the gloom?). This is a shame as both the salt mines and the grimly decorated doctor’s house could have offered much more. Then again, perhaps the fact that it was actually filmed in 3D - rather than merely being a post-conversion - played a hand in this decision. Speaking of the 3D, it’s apparent, (even from watching the ‘flat’ 2D preview DVD) that there are sequences clearly designed to provide that ‘in your face’ effect. I’m a sucker for this type of gimmicky 3D (FRIDAY THE 13^TH PART 3 being my absolute favourite example) and it would’ve been fun to see how effective those moments proved to be. I must also note that the preview disc I viewed had the words: “Property of Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment” permanently burned across the upper middle of the screen, which, when combined with the subtitles occupying the lower half, proved to be somewhat distracting at times.

But even taking all this into account, I still found PARANORMAL XPERIENCE (2D) to be a reasonably entertaining commercial Catalonian creep fest. (Had I been able to view it in 3D I might even have added an extra star to my rating).

P.S. there’s a brief additional scene post end-credits – for completists – (like me).

** (out of 5*)

Paul Worts

This review was originally published on the FrightFest website.