El rey de la montaña

There have been several dramas and thrillers with this message (which I don’t want to spoil) and this particular one doesn’t bring anything new to the table. On the contrary, it looks rather mundane. On the other hand, however, its story is set in the rarely seen environment of the Spanish wilderness and shows some brilliant work with suspense. Through most of the running time, we have no idea who is shooting at the main characters (who are just desperately trying to dodge bullets while not understanding anything) or why, which makes the film look almost mystical. The story is also driven forward by the relationship between the fugitives, which changes from initial distrust to codependency and the need to protect the other - which leads to the most powerful scene. (21.01.2012)

Another addition to the growing family of good quality Spanish (or European) horror (thrillers) with a rural setting. In terms of feeling and atmosphere, King of the Hill is somewhere between the British Wilderness and the Spanish Satan’s Blood, meaning that it’s bloody good! Another great thing about this film is seeing the nice transformation that the slasher subgenre has gone through in recent years. Where are those days when it relied mostly on the number of victims and their colourful deaths (i.e. the 1980s or the era of Scream)? I sincerely hope they are buried and forgotten. Today it’s mostly about realism, the heroes know almost from the start that they are in deep shit and the creators have them stew in that situation. As it should be. If you want to criticise, you’ll surely find something (the script at least isn’t the best), but I really enjoyed those 80 minutes. The only thing I wonder is how many more times they can use that “relatively original element” (I don’t want to spoil it) before it becomes a cliché. (16.03.2009)