3 Días (aka Before the Fall) 2008 | is this the best way to spend one's last hours on earth?

Remember when Spanish horror was all the rage in the 2000's ?  From the vanguard days of [Rec] (2007) and El Orfanato (aka The Orphanage) (2007), comes the very-well-made 3 Días (aka Before the Fall) (2008), a story sandwiched neatly twixt the announcement of a last-minute, life-ending meteor impact ("there is no hope for survival," as per the Orwellian newscasters),  and the actual time of impact, a mere 72 hours later.

The film handles the greater psychological parameters surrounding the breakdown of society quite well, the whole thing playing like a character in and of itself, lending a tone of exasperation, nihilism, cosmic futility to the action.

The story, in turn, is a revenge plot involving escaped child predator Lucio (Eduard Fernández) who returns to cause havoc with the family of Alejandro (Víctor Clavijo), a reluctant hero spurred to action upon suffering personal tragedy, who finds himself rising to the occasion to defend his nephews and nieces. 

The killer, played at first frighteningly disturbed becomes strangely comical, his final act of violence given the candy treatment in the style of La Cité des Enfants Perdus (aka City of Lost Children) (1995), the character evoking slightly the Joker of Batman fame --none of it making the violence any less perverse or horrific.

A tightly woven flick --not a stitch out of place, no sound left to chance-- this is certainly a satisfyingly classic Hollywood piece through and through.

dir F. Javier Gutiérrez