Following an accident that confines Javi to a wheelchair, his friend David becomes his caregiver. Alone together at David's country house, paranoia, claustrophobia, animosity and guilt eat away at them until there is little left. Misery meets The Shining.
If the enjoyable unpleasantness films is your bag, the Spanish-language Amigo might be your new best friend. But don't let that odd endorsement scare those of you who eschew the grosser offerings, for this high-brow mashup of drama and horror (with a drop of dark humor) is fueled by an almost unbearable stillness and an unexpectedly unique sense of the macabre. It's also seemingly buoyed by the real-life friendship of its creators: actors Javier Botet and David Pareja (better known as comedians) and director Óscar Martín, who know how to ring every ounce of tension from the bare-bones script that they wrote together and filmed in just one week.
Oscar Martin has an aesthetic sense that is extremely promising. Certain shots in the film are transfixing, and the deliberate pace of the editing leads to an exquisite sense of dread. He is certainly a filmmaker to watch in the genre sphere.
If the enjoyable unpleasantness films is your bag, the Spanish-language Amigo might be your new best friend. But don't let that odd endorsement scare those of you who eschew the grosser offerings, for this high-brow mashup of drama and horror (with a drop of dark humor) is fueled by an almost unbearable stillness and an unexpectedly unique sense of the macabre. It's also seemingly buoyed by the real-life friendship of its creators: actors Javier Botet and David Pareja (better known as comedians) and director Óscar Martín, who know how to ring every ounce of tension from the bare-bones script that they wrote together and filmed in just one week.
Oscar Martin has an aesthetic sense that is extremely promising. Certain shots in the film are transfixing, and the deliberate pace of the editing leads to an exquisite sense of dread. He is certainly a filmmaker to watch in the genre sphere.