Violence, torture, soccer.
Set in 1978 on the evening that Argentina beats Holland in the FIFA World Cup, a group of men working for the military engage in acts of torture against a trio of people accused of communism.
When they divulge the address of their leader, the men kidnap the people they find there, only to discover these people might not the be group they are looking for after they unleash a form of hell no one expected.
If there is one location of horror cinema I want to explore more, its content from Latin America. I’ve seen the big guns - Terrified and When Evil Lurks - and I loved them both. Super gory, super violent but highly entertaining.
This would be my third Argentinian film, but this is easily the weakest of the three. Clocking in at 72 minutes with an incredible 8 minutes end credit crawl, boosting the total run time to 81 minutes, this is a movie that could have done with more run time to explain a bit more to the audience about the origins of the kidnapped second group of people.
It’s difficult to talk about this movie without spoiling the final third, which admittedly was refreshing due to the fact it was completely unexpected. Having said that, a tiny bit of backstory or explanation wouldn’t have gone astray.
The reason I ask for more is because I enjoyed the opening twenty or so minutes. Writers and Directors The Onetti Brothers, have done this incredible job of building up the two main antagonists in the film: Moro and Carancho. With just three scenes: the card playing intro and the two separate torture scenes of both men, we get a brilliant insight into the depravity and mindset of these two men. Carancho in particular, and I’ll credit Carlos Portaluppi for his excellent performance in the role.
But in typical Argentinian horror, this is brutal. It’s gory and the torture scenes are uncomfortable. But perhaps the most impactful scene occurs when Carancho is forcing his two captives to dig a grave and tells one of the men to stand in it. Its powerful and shows his control over the situation, a control he quickly loses later on in the film.
However, once the final third begins and ‘all hell breaks loose’ - for lack of a better term - the movie loses its structure. It moves between characters quickly, the frustration there occurs with the similar looking characters, meaning at times I kind of lost track of who was who and what had already happened to them.
But that ending aside, the movie crafts atmosphere so sublimely that I wish more filmmakers would pay attention to the work the Onetti Brothers have done with this one. Maybe these guys could work with the Mo Brothers from Indonesia? The end result would be utterly insane.
GENRE Horror Thriller
DIRECTOR Nicolás Onetti and Luciano Onetti
STARRING Agustin Olcese, Mario Alarcón, Carlos Portaluppi
ORIGINAL TITLE 1978
ALTERNATIVE TITLE N/A
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN Argentina
RELEASE DATE 2 July 2025
This one has been on my watchlist for a while. It's rare to combine soccer and horror in films for some reason.