BY MATTHEW ENG |
2015 Tribeca-Selected Horror Indie Lands U.S. Distribution
Prolific Spanish filmmaker Adrián García Bogliano has been writing and directing an eclectic array of underground, low-budgeted indie horror films for more than a decade now, including Late Phases, Here Comes the Devil, Penumbra, and a segment of the international anthology The ABCs of Death.
The horror helmer's latest endeavor — an eerie, pitch-black, Mexico-set scarer about a dull accountant and an abducted schoolgirl entitled Scherzo Diabolico — made its world premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival and has now been acquired for future U.S. distribution by Dark Sky Films, the horror wing of MPI Media Groups, with plans for an early 2016 multi-platform release.
Whether Scherzo, with its audaciously despicable protagonist, twisty "aha!" moments, and bold Coen Brothers influences, will be the film to finally put Bogliano on the mainstream movie map, a la David Robert Mitchell and his viciously slut-shaming It Follows zombies, remains to be seen. And even if it doesn't, a creepy and reliably chill-inducing movie experience is still all but guaranteed.