By: JWBM
"Romina"—a low budget Mexican made horror feature—is a nonsensical mix of a camp slasher with a rape-revenge plot with no commentary to speak of, nothing to read between the lines, and on top of that weak thrills and suspense that only gets weaker as the wall clock seems to slowly come to a crawl.
It involves the kind of homicidal psychopath that only exists in movies, except where others would use that gross exaggeration to create a powerful, commanding villain full of raw energy and memorable characteristics, the film's driving point and plot are so far gone as to have been mixed in a blender, swallowed, half digested, and then thrown up. It feels like a short paragraph of premise was outlined on a napkin on the way out the door, and before you know it production was underway with little funding and a group of close friends to make it happen. I can only imagine it was a blast to shoot for those involved, but for everyone else it feels like a stretched out exercise in wasted energy.
The story is deceiving because initially the flow and direction seems simple enough—a group of energetic young men and women on a road trip to their potential doom—but then how one aspect leads up to another is like a hand-me-down jigsaw puzzle missing all the important pieces. You get to watch spineless characters excitedly talking over each other, bickering, and then splitting up and running around with little background, no direction, or game plan in mind. Yep, they're sure to be executed in a bloody fashion, but the film fails to make you care. I've been more moved by a half-heard quick sensationalist clip on the local news. Sure, the main point is to emulate the old grindhouse classics, and to also see some sex and carnage—adding another notch to the realms of horror and widening the eyes a little further—but even then the suspense and build-ups lack creativity and vision to feel like nothing more than a numbing wound.
Rating: 1/10
Director: Diego Cohen (Perdidos; Honeymoon)
Actors: Francisca Lozano
Info: IMDB link
Trailer: YouTube link
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