Sadly Over-hyped

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Good movie but grossly overrated

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Despite a fairly unimaginative title and promotion, this is a gem of a film. In fact, its unassuming marketing suits the small-town mystery of its story. It concerns the plight of drifter Martin (Cristobal Tapia Montt) who, having finally found that his missing wife is dead, also seems resigned to die at the hands of three local roughnecks who accost him. If only things were that simple.Co-produced by Eli Roth, this is a bleak affair, but one that moves at such a pace there is no real time to become really mournful. Every rapidly moving occurrence is explained fully and there are no gaping plot-holes. The local Lieutenant De Luca (Luis Gnecco) is probably the least easy to believe in – which is saying something, considering the breed of characters he shares the stage with – because he is so blatantly evil. With his bravado brutality (a trait he seems to have passed onto his son, Ariel Levy's vile Caleb), you would have thought his actions would have been discovered and he would have been drummed out of the force a long time ago.Due to his nature, Martin is equally brutal in his determination not to let his 'infection' spread, and yet he emerges as a true hero, alongside the faithful young Peter (Nicolás Durán) with whom an unsaid degree of trust has been formed. I am carefully trying to avoid spoilers with this, because there are so many twists and revelations that to reveal any one of them would undermine the experience of watching this hugely enjoyable, rather overlooked film.

I think I might be too generous with awarding good marks to movies that others characterize as being so-so. Perhaps it's the budding filmmaker in me that goes easy on new and unknown directors. One noticeable and annoying weakness in the film is how spineless the kid is. My goodness, they made him as soft as jellyfish. Also, the level of violence that the three thugs initially unleashed on the stranger was a little unrealistic and over the top for such a small town. But, drama being drama, I suppose it was necessary.Other reviewers here have pointed out how stiff some of the dialog is, and I agree with them. The scriptwriter could've been a little more creative. The lighting and direction was fine however so no complaints in that department. Gore hounds will like this film for sure as it delivers blood in spades. I thought it was interesting how the Stranger-vampire felt enormous pain when being assailed by his antagonists. I don't think I've ever seen that before, at least not with this much conviction anyway.This raw movie is far from the cheesy Hollywood suburban teen flicks. No buxom lasses strutting around in their underwear, no clichéd jock/nerd/goth kids, no overused "loss of cellphone coverage" in a cabin in the woods shtick and, thankfully, no found footage nonsense. This is a mature horror film and, yes, it might remind you of "Let the Right One In", but it's still worth your while.

I'm ticking the spoiler box because I'm going to call this a vampire movie.Usually I would say, "hey, everyone knows this is a vampire movie, there's no need to tick the box" but this is not an obvious vampire movie.This is not some teen romp where vampires fall in love with humans because everyone is so very pretty (Thank God!!) Someone had mentioned "near dark" in a previous review and I can slightly concur. It has that tainted reality feel to it that "Near Dark" has, though it has been literally decades since I saw that movie.It's gritty and it's violent. When they hit each other, you wince, you really feel it. Actually, this is one of my few gripes for the film, as I'm getting older I'm enjoying less and less violence in movies and the violence in this movie really stands out.It's a slow moving- half of the people will say "Oh yeah a vampire movie" right from the start while the other half will go *Oh, it's a Vampire movie?" right towards the end. (Unless they read this that is)I have to say this though, what a horrible place to live. Looks pretty with the mountains and all but everyone is a complete prick.

The movie looks great and the actors seem OK... but as I watched something kept bugging me. Repeatedly taking me out of the story and making me wonder 'what's wrong here?'. It took me a while but it started to dawn on me that none of the voices seem right. Overly precise and just don't go with the faces, if that makes sense. I'm pretty sure now that this was done with the actors speaking English, maybe phonetically, but probably with strong accents... and then later dubbed over with native English speakers. It creates a subtle but jarring effect that really got in the way of my enjoying what otherwise is a pretty good little horror tale. A bad decision, IMO... though a lot of the blame goes to audiences who refuse to watch subtitles.OK, other than that major complaint... it's not bad. Never scary... not too surprising.... but competent.