@lcfremont reviews…
Directed by: Hèctor Hernández Vicens
Written by: Hèctor Hernández Vicens and Issac P. Creus
Starring: Alba Ribas, Bernat Saumell, Cristian Valencia, Albert Carbó
Review
Here we go again with a movie that is forced upon the horror crowd simply because no other genre would want to acknowledge it. It’s no secret that, as a horror fan, I take umbrage with certain films being labeled as horror simply because they are horrific in nature.
If you are so inclined, you can read that article here: http://moviepilot.com/posts/2223248.
Spoiler Alert: I’m going to speak freely about the following film and it’s “plot” because it’s the only way to properly defend my irritation.
Enter The Corpse of Anna Fritz. I suppose this film could, technically, go under the rape/revenge genre, but only by a technicality. This film is 99% rape and 1% revenge and that math just doesn’t work for me. Basically, Anna Fritz is a celebrity of the Kardashian kind who has just been brought into the morgue where Pau works. As is probably the norm in some morgues, he takes a cell phone pic of Ms Fritz and sends it to his friends Ivan and Javi. Ivan and Javi were coming to get Pau and all go to a party that evening, so why not just take a peak at the dead celebrity while they’re there?
Ivan is quickly established as the token dude-bro who prizes a good time above all else. After taking a shot of liquor and doing some lines of coke, he decides that looking at Anna isn’t enough:he must fondle her as well. I mean, why not? She’s dead so she can’t complain, right? Hell, let’s just fuck her. She’s naked and on the table, just waiting to be defiled by an asshole named Ivan. Unsurprisingly, one of these guys (Javi) has a conscience and is very upset by this behavior, but not enough to put a stop to it. He allows Pau to keep him contained in the utility closet while Ivan finishes his business. Pau had admitted to having sex with a corpse previously, so now he’s all riled up and ready for his turn with Anna when Ivan is finished. Unfortunately, Anna wakes up while Pau is raping her. She is clearly terrified and very unsure of where she is, how she got there and why this jerkface is on top of her. What transpires from here is, mostly, rudimentary and expected.
Javi is beyond upset over what has happened and he just wants to get Anna out of there and somewhere safe, but Ivan is having none of that. They fight and Ivan “accidentally” kills Javi and this just causes Pau to be even more of a pussy. So, we’ve got an actual corpse (that we don’t want to rape) and a dead girl who is now alive and can send us to jail for raping her. What to do, what to do?
Clocking in at a mere hour and twelve minutes, the movie begins to drag while Ivan tries in vain to clean up the ginormous mess he has created. Our fearless Anna has a very brave escape attempt that is a pretty good moment of suspense and, overall, Alba Ribas played Anna with a heartbreaking and real mix of fear, vulnerability and chutzpah. This girl really brought a lot more to this movie than it deserved. Ivan is played by Chrisitan Valencia so well, that I really, truly wanted to murder the guy and Albert Carbo’s Pau is kind of a sad soul who you almost feel sorry for until you remember that he likes to rape corpses. Overall, this movie is full of things that are done really well and that is why I’m so very disappointed that all of this talent was wasted on something so generically abhorrent.
Necrophilia is a thing. Fine. Whatever. I don’t get it, but I don’t have to. Utilizing it as a plot device screams of, “look at me, I’m doing something controversial!” and I just can’t get down with that. Even if we put this in the rape/revenge category which is, admittedly, a sub-genre of horror, it barely qualifies because in those films, the revenge doled out by our Final Girl is most of the movie. That is not the case here. This is more a dissection of what two selfish, morally corrupt assholes do to try to cover up their disgusting behavior. Also, why is it never explained how Anna ended up in the morgue in the first place? Was she drugged at the party where her body was found? How is it possible that this lovely young lady escapes death not once, but twice? Surely, she must be of the supernatural variety, but then that doesn’t explain why she’s trapped in the hospital morgue, where apparently NO ONE ELSE works, with Ivan and Pau. For a movie that wasted just over an hour of my time, quite a bit happened that had no real explanation. My issue is not with the rape or the rape of a corpse or with the complete lack of likability of the characters. My issue is with the fact that a well made film with talented actors was wasted on a lazy script that felt more like I was being subjected to someone else’s sexual fetish.
The Corpse of Anna Fritz is available on DVD 8th of March and exclusively at flixfling.com
Lisa Fremont
Twitter: @lcfremont
Images: IMDb & londoncitynights.com
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