Reviewed by Geno McGahee
I love movies about time travel. TIMECOP with the very talented Jean Claude Van Damme is an amazing movie and you have BACK TO THE FUTURE (II and III sucked), and there are many more without Van Damme and Michael J. Fox. One of them is TIMECRIMES, written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, a Spanish film that has made its way over here to the United States. I’ve said before that the better films are coming from overseas because the US is just regurgitating the same crap over and over again. Movies like HIGH TENSION and WOLF CREEK are far better than SAW 2-1000 and the consistent remakes that are shoved down our throats. TIMECRIMES is an amazing and original film.
We begin with Hector (Karra Elejalde) and his wife Clara (Candela Fernandez) getting settled in their home. The happy couple is outside the home gardening and enjoying the beautiful day. Hector notices something in the woods across from his home and it turns out to be a very attractive naked woman. With Clara leaving the home, he can now pursue the hot girl in the woods and does. He finds her naked, sitting against a rock. When approaching the girl, a man with bloody rags wrapped around his head jumps out of nowhere and stabs him with scissors. Hector runs for it, stumbling across a building.
Terrified of the man with the scissors, he breaks a window and gets inside the building, finding a walkie talkie and discovering somebody on the other line. The man on the other line, El Joven (Nacho Vigalondo), guides him away from the building, up a path, to his lab with the scissor man closely on his trail. In the lab, El Joven convinces Hector to climb into a machine where he would be safe and he immediately awakens an hour back in time. This is where it gets tricky. There are now two Hectors.
Two Hectors turn into three Hectors as he continually tries to go back into time and fix the problems that he creates. No matter what he does, he seems to make things worse. I found it really amusing too how he referred to himself as “Hector 3” or “Hector 2.” I also loved some of the twists that were thrown into this…it’s a very smart movie. It reminded me of a TWILIGHT ZONE and I’m guessing that Vigalondo was a fan of the series after watching this movie.
What I also enjoyed about this movie was the fact that it was so original and you didn’t expect what you got from it…at least I didn’t. The cover art on the DVD wrap is the man with the rags wrapped around his head, holding scissors. It looks like many of the horror DVDs that you see nowadays with the big difference being that it doesn’t suck and that it doesn’t rely on gore or T&A to sell it. This film is very smart and incredibly interesting. I didn’t want it to end. It was that good.
It’s hard to write this review without revealing some of the twists. I am hoping that you watch this movie without reading any of the spoilers in other reviews. It is a great flick and I look forward to seeing what Vigalondo has in store for the horror fans next.
The only minor criticism I have of this film is the ending. I wasn’t impressed with how this film ended. It was so good up to that point that it almost seemed that Vigalondo ran out of ideas and didn’t really know how to conclude the film. Other than that, this is a near perfect film.
Scared Stiff Rating: 8/10. A great time travel flick!
