Shudder Saturday: Crazy Old Lady (2025)

An elderly person losing their grip on reality has been used as a premise for more than one horror movie by now. It's an idea rich with potential, but one that should be handled with some sensitivity and grace, in my view anyway. Crazy Old Lady, as you may have gleaned from the title, is not really interested in sensitivity and grace. It works surprisingly well though, especially when not ever letting you figure out if the main character ever has any control over their own actions.

Written and directed by Martín Mauregui, this is the tale of a man (Pedro, played by Daniel Hendler) who finds his night going from bad to worse when his ex-partner (Laure, played by Agustina Liendo) asks him to check in on her elderly mother (Alicia, played by Carmen Maura). Alicia hasn't been seeming too well lately, and Laura is worried after some phone conversations with her while travelling elsewhere. She is right to be worried, and Pedro has no idea what he is letting himself in for, which starts to become clear as Alicia continues to identify him as someone else. She also has plans for him that he really won't enjoy.

His second full feature after a couple of shorts at the turn of the century, Mauregui shows no signs of inexperience or a lack of confidence here. This is a horror film that makes good use of dark and atmospheric visuals, a premise that throws one main character into a deep hole of confusion, hopelessness, and pain, and a fantastic performance from Maura.

While it may seem distasteful to some, and it somehow manages to keep crafting moments that become increasingly difficult to watch, Crazy Old Lady retains an effective mix of nastiness and emotional pain. Those who have lost anyone to Alzheimer's disease, or any condition that similarly affects the brain and memory banks of a loved one, will know how unsettling it is to look into the eyes of someone you know and see, well, someone who appears to be a stranger. This film gets that right, and also flips the viewpoint occasionally to let us stay close to Alicia when she comes back to herself, albeit temporarily.

Maura is the big reason that this works as well as it does, pitching her performance absolutely perfectly. She's sweet and lovely one minute, conniving and ruthless the next, and both of her main personalities are convincing, as well as both being very separate incarnations of herself. Hendler has to keep looking perplexed and then very worried, which he does well. He blurts out whatever Alicia wants to hear at any given moment, his desperation clear as he keeps trying to free himself, and his understandable nerves work opposite the calm of his co-star to make this a great two-hander for most of the runtime. Liendo has one or two scenes that treat her well, young Emma Cetrángolo is a cute granddaughter, Elena, making a very effective surprise appearance at one point, and there are a couple of other characters who come into our lead's orbit very briefly, adding some more tension before heading back offscreen.

I cannot speak for everyone, but I THINK this does well enough to justify the central idea. There are awful things depicted here, but there's always the feeling that Alicia is being used and abused by her own brain, resulting in a loss that she'll suffer from for a long time, whenever the more recent memories bubble back up and jostle alongside the fragmented older memories causing her so much confusion.

7/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

Mubi Monday: Pepi, Luci, Bom And Other Girls Like Mom (1980)

I think I first saw Pepi, Luci, Bom And Other Girls Like Mom about 20-25 years ago, back when I wasn't quite so familiar with the filmography of writer-director Pedro Almodóvar. I thought it was a funky and odd film, quite the mix of melodrama, sex, and something enjoyably spiky and punk. I know that you could say the same thing about many other Almodóvar movies, but it's good to know that he seemed fairly fully-formed when he began to direct features. This is only his second full-length film, but it's standard Almodóvar through and through.

Carmen Maura plays Pepi, a young woman who we see quite early on being assaulted by an abusive policeman (played by Félix Rotaeta). Pepi decides to get revenge, but her initial plan doesn't work out as expected. So she sets her sights on Luci (Eva Siva), the wife of the policeman. Luci is quite the masochist, which makes it easier to lead her further and further down a path of hedonism and sexual freedom, much to the initial amusement of Pepi and her friend, Bom (played by Alaska, AKA Olvido Gara Jova). Things soon start shifting in the balance of the group though, and maybe it's not a great idea to try and hit back at someone by degrading a masochist. 

There doesn't seem to be too much to say about this though, although I accept that my lack of words may be down to my lack of critical thinking while being entertainingly bemused and distracted by the antics of the main characters. I know one thing I need to comment on first though. Some viewers may dislike the way Almodóvar seems to use sexual abuse so flippantly, especially if you've not seen any other movies from him, but there IS something being said about boundaries, control, and what different people seek from sexual encounters. I don't think it all entirely balances out, but the conversations and many other pairings throughout the film at least go some way towards showing some of the damage and consequences stemming from abuse.

Maura almost floats through the entire movie, despite being the one person who is treated in such an awful way that she ends up setting off the entire chain of events. Her indefatigable spirit is another reason the film works better than it otherwise would. Alaska is a lot of fun, scowling at many around her, but always ready to be right by the side of those she actually cares about while life keeps throwing mud in their eyes. Siva doesn't need to stay too quiet and prudish for long, and she's very good at portraying someone who throws herself into a new and exciting life while still feeling that strong pull to her old self. Rotaeta isn't allowed to soften any edges of his character, making his acting job easier as he moves from one victim to the next, always eager to bully and use people just long enough for him to get his kicks. The character is loathsome, the performance is great.

I still think that Almodóvar has done all of his absolute best work in the 21st century (well, from the late '90s and beyond), despite some other titles scattered throughout his filmography that many people like a lot more than I do, but this is a hell of a sophomore feature that encapsulates a lot of what he does so well. It doesn't have the polish of his later films, of course, but that works to his advantage, with the energy and aesthetic easily distracting from any of the potential negatives.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing, and ALL of the links you need are here - https://linktr.ee/raidersofthepodcast
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

Witching & Bitching (2013)

If you're unfamiliar with the name Alex de la Iglesia then you may have missed out on some of the most entertaining Spanish movies in the last two decades (and, yes, I am aware of how much competition those movies have). The man has given audiences one near-classic in The Day Of The Beast, one full classic in The Last Circus, and one of the best films that too few people have heard of, Perdita Durango. He also directed Accion Mutante, as well as quite a few others (that I've not seen yet, but am looking forward to getting to at some point).

And this film. Yes, Alex de la Iglesia definitely directed this film. You can tell within the first few scenes, mixing his usual healthy sense of humour with some decidedly twisted material. He also co-wrote the movie with Jorge Guerricaechevarria, and the two men once again decide to run with some entertainingly wild ideas.

Hugo Silva plays Jose, a man whom viewers first get to see dressed up like Jesus. He then takes part in an armed robbery, accompanied by a man made up to look like a toy soldier (Antonio, played by Mario Casas) and his young son. It soon becomes clear that Jose feels he was driven to this act by a sense of desperation, but while the three robbers flee from the police and think about their actions they end up heading towards a village full of witches. It's going to be an eventful night, to say the least.

I expected Witching & Bitching to be a lot of fun, and it was. There were witches, and there was a fair bit of bitching between the main characters. What surprised me, however, was the fact that this also spent a fair bit of time commenting on male emasculation in modern society. The fact that this commentary takes place around characters who often act like complete idiots saves the movie from feeling like a bitter rant against women, but only just. Perhaps I'm being charitable, so consider this fair warning to anyone more incensed by such "battle of the sexes" content.

Silva is constantly charming in the lead role, even as his character is displaying such major flaws from the opening scenes. Casas is a lot of fun, and the two men play off each other pretty well. Young Gabriel Angel Delgado is a lot of fun as Sergio, the young lad dragged along by his irresponsible father, and Jaime Ordonez is great as the driver of a cab hijacked by the fleeing criminals. As for the female characters, Carolina Bang is the star of the show. She plays Eva, a young, attractive witch who finds herself distracted by the appearance of Jose. Macarena Gomez is understandably on edge throughout most of the movie, being the ex-wife of Jose, and the mother of Sergio, and she gives a great performance. Terele Pavez and Carmen Maura complete the main cast, with the former acting senile and bemused before trying to attack people with sharp metal dentures, and the latter treating the whole night as one big potential dinner party. Carlos Areces also shows up, in a small but memorable role (and I felt I had to mention him because of his prominence in other movies from De La Iglesia).

Most genre fans will enjoy this a lot. It's quirky, visually stylish, mixes some decent action beats in with the supernatural shenanigans and humour, and the characters are all fun to spend time with. The special effects veer between the impressive and the amusingly clumsy (e.g. some shots of two women scurrying around on a ceiling look like test footage rejected by the Harry Potter movies), but that's the only technical complaint I have. Yet it doesn't come together as it should. Somehow, unlike his other movies, this feels a bit forced. Despite one or two bravura sequences in the final third of the movie, the second half feels like De La Iglesia trying desperately to make a De La Iglesia movie. I much prefer his output when he works harder to make it appear effortless.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Witching-Bitching-Pepon-Nieto/dp/B00LTKTINK/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1411769623&sr=1-1&keywords=witching+and+bitching