El Bosque de los Sometidos (2012)

Directed by Nicolás Amelio-Ortiz [Other horror films: N/A]

I wanted so much to like this Argentinian movie. Known as The Flaying, El Bosque de los Sometidos is a movie with plenty of potential, but I didn’t care much for where the story went, and while there are some good portions, I can’t say I overall enjoyed it.

I don’t have a whole lot of experience with Argentinian horror. I’ve only seen four others (Cold Sweat from 2010, Resurrection from 2015, Plaga zombi, and De que estamos hechos from 1987), and none of them wowed me. On a somewhat amusing side-note, I thought both La casa muda and Baby Shower were also from Argentina, but La casa muda’s from Uruguay, and Baby Shower is Chilean, so that shows my knowledge of South America.

The point is, I’ve not seen many films from Argentina, and I really wanted to like The Flaying. I sought it out specifically because I thought it sounded as though it had potential, and I’ll definitely say that it did. Four friends are traveling through Argentina, and come across an old, dilapidated castle, and then horrors begin. Don’t tell me that doesn’t sound fun.

What’s better is, that plot is something that easily could have been made as a found footage film. The set-up reminded me a bit of Germany’s Die Präsenz, Peru’s Secreto Matusita (2014), and Mexico’s Perdidos (2014), found footage films all. The Flaying easily could have been found footage, but they opted for a more traditional form of filming, and I really appreciated that.

Even so, while I enjoyed portions of the build-up, the build-up does take a decent while. Nothing particularly scary happens until 45 minutes in or so, and while I loved the dilapidated castle (and by dilapidated, I don’t mean it needed a light glow-up; it literally didn’t have a roof) and the surrounding forest, it wasn’t enough for me, and once the antagonist is revealed and the action begins, I just didn’t love how they went about it.

Of course, this is no fault of the performances. Juan Sebastian Alvarez Windey, Emilio Martin, Olivia Tykocki, and Celeste Subatin all did perfectly fine, and each of their characters had personality and their own individual characteristics. The setting and performances were strong, so that’s not the issue here.

We do get some gore toward the end – someone has a couple of their fingers cut off (this happens offscreen, but we do see the aftermath), and we see pieces of flesh hanging from the ceiling, but portions of the finale aren’t exactly clear to me, which sort of bothered me.

I think when it comes down to it, The Flaying is a pretty decent low budget attempt, but I don’t think the finale was really a great pay-off. Others may well think differently, and I’d still say the movie is worth a watch for a bit of foreign flavor, but I can’t say I thought it was that good.

5.5/10