NIGHTSTREAM 2020: 32 Malasaña Street
NIGHTSTREAMShudder attempts to boost its original content with Spanish haunted house horror, 32 Malasana Street, just in time for Halloween. Set in Madrid in 1976 and supposedly inspired by real events, the movie follows the Olmedo family (three generations of them) as they move away from the countryside and into the modernity of their new home. Unbeknownst to them however, the house is haunted by an unhappy spirit.
For sure, it’s all very standard stuff but the thrills work and the scares are often scary with director Albert Pinto effectively manipulating a sense of dread out of every scene. He also knows how to handle light – the majority of the film takes place in some sort of darkened interior, but Pinto makes sure the audience never misses a trick, somehow putting every piece of well-designed 70s assemblage fully on display with some beautifully crisp cinematography.
From its opening sequence, the tone is set. The scene itself follows two unrelated characters – two young brothers – as they attempt to retrieve a marble that has rolled under the door of their elderly neighbour. It’s a quick cash-in on the jump-scares, but also gives away quite a lot of the visual elements of the demonic foe of the movie. It may set the viewer up for the tone of the film, but spoils a lot of the upcoming mystery
After the Olmedo family are introduced things, of course, start gearing up towards a supernatural climax. It’s this build-up that Pinto manages to craft so well. Pinto hardly wastes a breath on pushing the story forward and the family have hardly moved in before the youngest member of the group, Rafael (the seven-year-old Ivan Renedo, in a convincing performance for one so young), has gone missing. It’s the movie’s creepiest scene and features a rocking chair, a puppet and someone who really needs their nails clipped. It’s also aided with the help of some stealthy camerawork – achingly slow pans that almost play piggy in the middle with Rafael draw out the tension to the max.
From this point on, Pinto manages to both play to form and play with form. The movie never takes a hugely unexpected departure, but certain character elements are refreshingly welcome. For example, Amparo (Begona Vargas) – the eldest and only daughter of the family – isn’t blamed for Rafael’s disappearance and is instead comforted, despite a scene beforehand seemingly setting her up to become the stereotypical person in a horror film who nobody believes. The family’s strength in sticking together and never doubting each other is surprisingly warming.
Other elements of the film seem tacked on and seem to only exist in order to justify the existence of having so many characters. The middle child, Pepe (Sergio Castellanos), isn’t given much screen time but does have an ongoing arc in which he sends and receives notes – sometimes sensual, sometimes creepy – over a clothesline from next door, but this plotline simple resolves itself in a couple of jump-scares that, although work, don’t particularly add much to the story. Jose Luis de Madariaga, as Grandfather Olmedo, only seems to walk around and act odd so that people might start to suspect him as being involved. He’s not, he’s just old and that’s what Pinto thinks old people do.
Although overstuffed with characters and with the final reveal leaving much to be desired, 32 Malasaña Street has a lot of solid punches to throw beforehand.