REVIEW: CULT OF TERROR (2017) DOCUMENTARY ON HORROR
By Elena Anele (*)
CULTO AL TERROR – aka Cult of Terror- (2017) is a Spanish- Argentinian documentary directed and written by Gustavo Mendoza about horror cinema in general.
It is made of different pieces of interviews to male horror icons and Barbara Crampton, some of them taken from press conferences, DVD extras or festivals master classes –, some American / Spanish critics, experts and people related to the terror community in some way as the case of Angel Sala, Sitges director. It is produced by Fantastics, Chaparra Entertaiment / Bizarre Man so songs by Motor Zombies are incorporated, too.
It was premiered at Sitges Fest in 2017 in the Brigadoon Section and I do not know if there has been any kind of DVD edition, even though it was also at Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre or Frightfest.
Strengths: we can discover some unknown voices from South American chilling community that often do not make it to Spain or Europe, interesting footage on Coffin Joe, amazing having Mick Garris, Robert Englund and many more, and also the sequences from cult classic movies that illustrate the narrative.
Drawbacks: there is only one woman invited to the project, so I am missing a lot as I think we need to be given voice and explain what the genre is for us, the narrative line is kind of chaotic as there are some moments in which I couldn’t understand what the point was, and it may be a little too long for a doc, around 2 hours, which makes it repetitive and tiring.
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Elena Anele is the woman in charge of SPANISHFEAR.COM, Horror Rises from Spain / El podcast surge de la tumba and Un Fan de Paul Naschy . A literature and cinema researcher, finishing her postgraduate studies with a thesis about the mystic filmmaker José Val del Omar. She has published in different media and books as Fangoria or Hidden Horror. She has also been in charge of several translations including Javier Trujillo’s complete works, La Mano Film Fest, The Man who Saw Frankenstein Cry and many more.
