Thesis

I expected more of this film. Not that I'm a big Amenábar fan, but the premise sounded interesting enough and the film has often been praised as one of the highlights of Spanish cinema. It hasn't aged all that well though, what remains is a somewhat sluggish version of 8MM (with no Cage in sight).

The plot revolves around a student who is interested in onscreen violence and wants to write her thesis about the subject. Looking for gruesome and shocking films, she gets mixed up with some shady people and ends up caught in the middle of a snuff operation. Most of the film is spent on figuring out the culprits.

Though Thesis is often booked as a horror film, it's really just a thriller with a darker subject matter. Maybe this was tense or scary in '96, but nowadays it's pretty tame, not in the least because Amenábar makes sure not to show the most disturbing footage. Performances are mediocre, the direction is rather plain and the whodunit too basic. It's not terrible, just nothing special.