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I wanted to but couldn't!

As Good As It Gets

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

You may remember Ivana Baquero as the cute 12-year-old Ofelia in Pan's Labyrinth. She took home a shelf full of awards, including a Goya. She's 15 now, and still cute. She is among a group of teens that find a thief (Maru Valdivielso) dressed as Santa down a hole, and they torture her to get the money she stole.Paco Plaza ({Rec}, Romasanta) directs this fascinating film. He is assisted by Luis Berdejo as the screenwriter. Berdejo also penned {REC}.The teens watch Zombie Invasion on TV and decide to perform the ritual on the thief. It works, and they are running for their lives as she comes after them with an ax. They remember the techniques in Zombie Invasion to kill the zombie, but it was Karate Kid that did the job.Valdivielso (Romasanta) was excellent as the thief/zombie. All of the kids were super. It was an enjoyable horror film.

"Six Films to Keep You Awake" is a Spanish TV initiative created/produced by the most legendary granddaddy of Spanish horror cinema Narciso Ibañez Serrador ("Who Can Kill A Child", "The House that Screamed") and featuring episodes directed by some of the country's most prominent and world-widely respected filmmakers in the genre, like Alex De La Iglesia ("Day of the Beast", Perdita Durango"), Jaume Balagueró ("Darkness", "The Nameless") and Paco Plaza ("Rec", "The Second Name"). If this is Spain's response to the similar American TV-series "Masters of Horror", than I can only be enthusiast and thrilled to notice that the horror genre is still alive and kicking! "The Christmas Tale" was my first personal acquaintance with the series. A vastly enjoyable one, I may add, and definitely one that makes me look forward to the five remaining installments.The plot introduces five 12-year-old but very independent kids (four boys and a girl) who are about to spend a life-altering Christmas vacation. They discover an unconscious woman dressed up as Santa Clause in a pit in the woods who turns out to be a fugitive and dangerous bank robber. Since this woman allegedly stole 2 million pesetas – and since the police don't even bother listening to them – the quintet decides to keep her trapped in the pit and question her about the loot. The situation soon escalates, as some of the kids gradually develop into merciless and sadist abductors. Things get even beyond control when a voodoo-ritual from a silly horror film, which the kids playfully imitated, turns out frighteningly real and the woman rises from the pit as a vengeful and bloodthirsty zombie. "The Christmas Tale" is versatile and chock-full of ideas in spite of his short running time of barely 70 minutes. The film seemingly unfolds as a rather disturbing hostage-thriller, but halfway changes into a more light-headed zombie horror flick. The first half more tension-driven and the second half thrives more on excitement, but the blackly comical elements as well as the energetic atmosphere are maintained throughout the whole movie. The script is also stuffed with small but highly ingenious gimmicks and delightful tributes to older horror and non-horror classics. The events take place in the year 1985, for example. This is mainly a tribute to the kid-gang movies of that period (like "Stand by Me" and "The Goonies"), but perhaps also to justify why the kids spend their school holidays playing outside instead of rotting away behind their computers. The timing and setting also provide the ideal excuses to showcase a handful of terrific 80's set pieces and songs (like the catchy disco hit "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie" used in a masterful scene) and there are also numerous posters and VHS tapes of elderly Spanish horror flicks to spot in the backgrounds (like "Tombs of the Blind Dead", "The Werewolf versus the Vampire Women" and "Horror Express"). The young cast members deliver tremendous performances and Maru Valdivielso is also terrific as the Santa Clause and, by the way, the only adult character whose face can be seen properly.

In 1985, in a coastal town in Spain, the friends Koldo (Christian Casas), Peti (Roger Babia), Tito (Pau Poch), Eugenio (Daniel Casadellà) and Moni (Ivana Baquero) stumble with a woman dressed like Santa Claus trapped in a hole in the woods. While to boys go to the police station to ask for help, the others find a rope to take the woman out of the hole. However, the boys find in the police station that the woman is the dangerous thief Rebeca Expósito (Maru Valdivielso), who has just stolen two million pesetas from a bank and is wanted. The group decides to leave the woman in the hole without any food to force her to give the robbed money to them. Meanwhile, Peti and Eugenio that are fans of the movie "Zombie Invasion", decide to make a voodoo ceremony with Rebecca to transform her into a zombie. When Rebecca escapes from her imprisonment, she uses an axe to chase the evil boys."Cuento de Navidad" is a one of the best episodes that I have seen of the great Spanish series "Películas Para No Dormir". The director Paco Plaza has an extraordinary effort to make such good movie working with five kids and one outstanding actress, Maru Valdivielso. The result is an original and very dark film, blending black humor and horror with cruelties and no innocence of the abusive teenagers that show no merci while torturing a "mean woman". My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Delinqüentes Diabólicos" ("Evil Delinquents")

"Stories to keep you awake" was a legendary Spanish TV series that told independent suspense / horror stories every week. As of 2006, some Spanish media have joined resources to produce a follow-up in the shape of six direct-to-DVD films, directed by some of the most popular Spanish film directors. "Cuento de Navidad" is helmed by Paco Plaza, director of "The second name" and "Romasanta".Among the bunch of films that compose this series, this may easily be the best of the lot. Paco Plaza creates a surprisingly cruel negative to teen films, such as "The Goonies" or the Spanish TV series "Verano azul". Set in the early 80s (pop culture references abound in the story), it tells the story of a group of early teenagers that find a wounded woman in the woods, dressed up as Santa. Rather than helping her, they start abusing her, and as soon as they learn she's the suspect of a bank robbery they increase the abuse in order to obtain the robbed money themselves.It's a bleak story, full of cruelty, and Plaza's talent is evident when he uses elements that in other hands would be comedic to increase the cruelty of the tale: when the abused woman manages to turn tables on the kids and pursues them axe in hand, they mistake her for a zombie, and in their efforts to defend themselves of her attacks, the mimic the techniques they've seen in horror movies, much to our horror.It's not a perfect film. I've mentioned how the tale is packed with pop culture references, and some of them feel a bit gratuitous, although they are well integrated within the plot. I was specially amused by a zombie flick that appears recurrently, a parody of Lucio Fulci's movies that strucks more than a chord. Watching local rock and roll star Loquillo as a zombie hunter (with dubbed southamerican accent to boot) is absolutely priceless.