generation casseroles
Carlota Pereda’s short film Cerdita is a landmark piece that blends rural tradition with a stark fear of weight, schoolyard cruelty, and the silhouette of a killer. Laura Galán emerges as the totemic heroine in a fourteen minute nightmare that exposes the cruelty of adolescence under the brutal heat of a summer. The film follows Sara and a circle of hostile classmates as humiliation unfolds under the sun, offering a brutal look at the body and the violence that surrounds it.
That tension becomes something more than shock. It acts as a seed for a raw terror apparatus where flesh bears the marks of abuse in myriad ways. The experience sits at the crossroads of Catherine Breillat’s sharp explorations of female desire and violence and Tobe Hooper’s relentless atmosphere of dread, all filtered through a distinctly Iberian noir lens that handles the grotesque with clever restraint.
Some may feel uneven shifts in the narrative, yet Carlota Pereda demonstrates a keen ability to carve a personal world. She creates daylight-haunted atmospheres and images that carry a potent, sinister energy. The film earns a cult status in contemporary horror by giving its antagonists symbolic weight and by turning the gaze of others into a weapon. Blood and internal organs appear without apology, but the result shapes a cathartic celebration of liberation from both flesh and prejudice.
‘Halloween: The End’ by David Gordon Green ★★★★
The contagion of evil
David Gordon Green completes the highly influential Halloween trilogy that began with John Carpenter’s 1978 classic. In close dialogue with the modern horror tradition, Green coordinates a finale that draws on the legacy of the series and the enduring battle between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers. With Jamie Lee Curtis aboard, the film closes the loop on a saga that has stretched across decades and transformed the landscape of slasher cinema. The final act is a precise and often brutal culmination of the themes that have defined the trilogy.
The response to past attempts to explain Myers’s origins diverged, and Green chooses a straightforward path. The setting of Haddonfield as a mood and backdrop for the spread of evil gives the story both geography and gravity. The film leans into the idea of an infection that travels through a town and through generations, offering a reverse of expectations in its closing sequences. The final shots linger in the silence of an empty house, echoing a height of Carpenter’s original impact.
‘Peter Von Kant’ by Francois Ozon ★★★
A hands-on and free exercise
Francois Ozon’s latest is a reading of a Fassbinder classic that cannot be separated from its influences. Based on the bittersweet Petra Von Kant, the film reimagines a fashion designer caught in a tense triangle with a devoted apprentice and secretary, recasting the drama with a director who is now a filmmaker. The project sharpens its connections to Fassbinder while offering its own modern twist, inviting questions about art, identity, and desire.
In this adaptation, Ozon keeps the essence while delivering a leaner, more accessible tone. The settings are less claustrophobic, the dialogue more direct, and the emotional echoes still charged. The work remains deeply interested in the dynamics of control and the pursuit of recognition, challenging viewers to consider how spectacle and power shape intimate relations. The question lingers: why this particular reassessment of a famous story?
‘Dibolic’ by Antonio and Marco Manetti
a colorful pack
The inspiration for this new feature by the Manetti brothers does not lie with a pop art jewel of the sixties but rather with a classic Italian graphic universe. The film riffs on first series material from a famed comic, focusing on a thief whose ruthlessness defines the early moral lessons of the character. The energy is high as the plot centers on a bank heist that spirals toward tragedy, with the antihero facing consequences that feel inevitable from the outset.
Visual stylization drives the piece, especially in nocturnal cityscapes and the exuberant early era of the genre. The filmmakers reveal a fondness for giallo traditions, yet the narrative complexity remains modest. The sequence of events is straightforward, and the attempt to over-explain certain choices feels misplaced. The antihero’s presence still commands the frame, but his scope mirrors the boundaries of a comic’s original page.
‘Wild Sunflowers’ by Jaime Rosales ★★★★
Open the door
Jaime Rosales presents a triptych that starts with a tense, unsettling tone. The arc follows toxic masculinity and a deeply internal quest for happiness through the lens of a woman-weathered search for self-discovery. Anna Castillo plays a single mother navigating complicated relationships with her children and a cautious, dangerous romance. The partner, Oriol Pla, embodies a blend of seduction and menace that unsettles the viewer. The film moves through suspenseful moments where danger feels near yet remains obliquely referenced.
Rosales also experiments with form, using ellipses and split screens to dissect memory and time. The parallel sections accumulate quickly, portraying a life altered by events such as a disappearance and a new pregnancy. One standout sequence on a lake, paired with a haunting musical cue, leaves a lingering impression about beauty, fear, and the cost of desire.
‘Hasan’s Promise’ by Semih Kaplanoğlu ★★★
Calm against high voltage
Semih Kaplanoğlu’s Hasan’s Vaadi unfolds with patient, careful framing. The film captures the quiet endurance of a farmer facing a threatened livelihood as a high voltage tower rises near his orchard. The cinematic pace invites viewers to savor each shot and the emotions the images carry, a deliberate choice that mirrors the film’s themes of land, tradition, and resilience.
As in the filmmaker’s previous work, the story juxtaposes two ways of life and follows the sudden disappearance of one. Kaplanoğlu develops a portrait of family ties and religious beliefs, examining how individuals respond to change while maintaining a sense of stubborn dignity. The restrained audiovisual style heightens the drama, with a few moments of stark stylization that leave a lasting impression, such as the opening water-well sequence.