Timecrimes

Timecrimes, the Spanish language thriller that's garnered a lot of buzz and is already in American remake turnaround (Cronenberg to direct?), tells an interesting story in a wholly uninteresting manner.

It's a horror/stalker film in a sense, but also sci-fi in that it's about a man who gets into a time travel machine. Instead of rewinding to some exotic past or zipping ahead to a utopian future, Héctor (Karra Elejalde) only racks up a few hours against the clock and winds up just a few hundred yards from his own backyard. As a magical unexpected bonus of sorts, he is also cloned three times.

Oscar-nominated (for his short, 7:35 in the Morning) writer/director/co-star Nacho Vigalondo  doesn't really explain how the time machine works or how any of this happens to  plain old Héctor, and that's the interesting part — unlike the usual scholarly scientist who thinks he knows exactly what he is doing, our hero is an unwitting pawn who, once he discovers what has happened to him, tries to take command of the situation. Of course, as horror stories usually do, the situation unravels into a bloody mess and a hot, naked chick dies.

But I make it seem seedy. There is a conveniently, inexplicably nude female who dies, but it isn't exploitative. However, that doesn't mean it's a good movie, either. While its roots are definitely in the art house and not the grindhouse, Timecrimes commits the egregious sin of taking a striking situation and presenting it in the most humdrum manner possible. The cinematography is so pedestrian, there might as well have been a crosswalk on the set.

And not only that, some of the things that are supposed to be scary come off almost laughable. At one point, Héctor swaddles his injured head in bandages and comes across looking like a pink-tinged Invisible Man. Once he starts lurching around, John Merrick springs to mind. Then there's another moment where Héctor's miming his own-self looking through binoculars, but is just looking through his curved fingers for no apparent reason. There are also a few ridiculous situations wherein one of his three selves is chasing (stalking) another one of him through the convenient woods, holding sharp, stabbing scissors.

What's more, Héctor is an oaf — not someone one wants to spend an hour and half with, in triplicate. (On the flipside, writer/director Vigalondo embodies his own character with a wily innocence that's quite engaging.)

All that said, if you can appreciate reasonably unique ideas — even poorly executed ones — Timecrimes may be worth a look on DVD.

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