When they arrive they film as many people speaking of the labyrinth and the legend as will sit for them, including a friend of the parents Carlos (Jose Masegosa), but nothing seems to come to light other than a creepy maze outside and the anger of their father when they insist on continuing to creep around outside. The tide begins to turn when the family dog is found at the bottom of an old well, obviously ripped apart and killed, and continues to escalate leading to a few of the scariest movie scenes ever.
Atrocious is typical in so many ways through the entire first half of the film. Independent horror (and some studio horror) has a love affair with cheaply made handi-cam horror films, primarily because anybody and their mother can make such a film on a shoestring and pass it off as “art”; the cost of entry to the movie business has never been lower than it is today, and the result is an Indie landscape littered with crappy movies with aspirations to become the next Blair Witch Project. Not only is Atrocious in lockstep with other teen disaster films created with no budget and no clear direction through the first scenes, it has subtitles besides (for those of us watching the film in English, that is) which makes everything happening even more difficult to embrace. Luckily the banter and action in the film are interesting enough to prevent a total tune-out, because once the action begins the tables are turned upside down.
Atrocious transforms from a run-of-the-mill cheap homemade film to an engrossing and terrifying emotional roller coaster ride that draws up horror feelings most haven’t experienced since their own childhoods. The way the POV camera with night vision is used through the nighttime maze scenes is nothing short of masterful. Night vision with hand-held cameras has been used a lot in horror lately, notably in [REC] and the English-language remake Quarantine, but the result of the same concept in Atrocious digs deeper. Running through the labyrinth with that limited vision through the camera, combined with the tight corridors of the maze, dead ends and random statues and objects coming into sight and then out of sight work together to weave an edge-of-your-seat experience that will have you wide-eyed and motionless, unable to look away.
In Atrocious it’s dark, then light again, then dark yet again in different environments; and all the while a mostly (but not completely) unseen menace stalks and hunts like a specter in a bad dream. After sticking with the first scenes of this film with just mild interest, I couldn’t speak for a few minutes after the credits rolled.
Many Horror Freaks spend much of their lives searching for that horror movie that will make them feel the level of fear they experienced when they watched their first horror movie as a child, and that search can be somewhat futile. Many films try and capture this feeling through increasingly graphic gore and ridiculously sadistic torture, or by crossing the boundaries of civilized society to invoke feelings of discomfort and disgust. Atrocious doesn’t resort to any of those tactics, but instead plays on the unknown and feelings of powerlessness to rekindle the pure adrenaline rush of fear that will remind you what it’s like to watch a film that just might give you nightmares.
Atrocious is definitely low-budget and doesn’t break any barriers regarding production quality or performances. What this film does do better than any in recent memory is capture the raw fear of those in peril in a way that transfers the experience to the audience completely and totally, forcing us to experience it to. That is an amazing thing.
