Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

ivica83 The premise for "Tesis" sounds intriguing: apparently it's a film about a girl that is looking for academic answer to questions such as "Why is death and violence so fascinating?", "Is it morally correct to show violence in movies?" and "If so, is there a limit to what we should show?" Genre-wise, "Tesis" is promoted as a thriller offering that could potentially satisfy horror aficionados or at least the audience of the first "Scream" film, which was released around the same time. Also, "Tesis" is a film that is virtually impossible to avoid in any serious list of genre films in the 1990s.Given this preface, why am I so disappointed in this little Spanish flick? I'll give three reasons: 1. It never bothers to answer or discuss the questions it raises. The main character, Angela, seems to be clueless about what her thesis is about: what does she really mean when she says "violence" and how does she intend to approach it? Is it enough to approach a random guy, watch a tape with him and then scribble random thoughts on what she has seen? Is it possible that she has not heard of snuff films before the events represented in "Tesis"? Why is she interested in this subject in the first place? At one point she says that she is interested in the subject because she doesn't like violence, but this cannot be true at any level unless Angela is fully retarded (does Angela write theses on everything she doesn't like??? like badly cooked macaroni???)...2. Then again, it is quite possible that Angela is a special needs case given that she never contacts the police even though she is sitting on a pile of evidence that will completely unravel the thriller portion of the film. To make things worse, once she has everything she needs to deduce who the killer is, she does not bother to look at the evidence. I mean, you would like to know who it is that has been killing girls all around you, wouldn't you? Especially if the killer could target you next? And all you would need to do is just pop a tape into the VCR and watch for about 5 or so minutes. But of course, such an action would cut "Tesis" for about 20 minutes off its running time...3. Scrap that. If Angela follows logic at any of the crucial beats of "Tesis", the film would never pass the 1 hour mark. In fact, "Tesis" might never take off without stupidity. Just why does Angela take the tape? When she finally watches it, why doesn't she hand it over to the police? Why does she ever get involved with Chema and Bosco? There are so many opportunities to get rid of both of these arrogant pricks, and that none of them is used is utterly insulting. If Angela is suspicious of both, she fails completely at self-preservation by associating with them, doesn't she? So, given these three points, by the last third of "Tesis" I stopped caring about the outcome, and it is quite possible that the director Amenabar had also quit at making any sense out of it while filming. My final question is: why is "Tesis" in such good standing despite its flaws? The only answer I can think of is that it's a Spanish film, which means that it is a bit harder to get to in America, and is therefore largely seen by genre fanatics that give it a pass based on its non-American origin. Some say that "Tesis" would have made a lot of money as American flick but there is also the possibility that the American production would have also brought a level of scrutiny that would have killed its cult status.

cnitinb Tesis , starts off with a journalism student who is doing a thesis on audiovisual violence, gets pulled into a gore scandal that has her running away from it but at the same time getting draw to the mystery. Two suspects, a surprise killer and a tight screenplay all packed in a two hour thriller has been attempted many times but has rarely succeeded like this. Not a moment in this thriller feels unwanted or stretched, even the humor falls neatly in place. The acting is nothing to rave about but in all honestly it suited just fine for this movie. Ana Torrent as 'Angela' is a character that had been written so well that her intentions are are mysterious as the suspects'. Not many thrillers that come out these days can match the quality of movies like these. While we have our finger's crossed for Hollywood to bring out another 'Silence of lambs' in this post-Hitchcock era, movies like this can comfort a person with good taste for them.

Sandcooler Wow, this one was good. Written with the precision of a tree surgeon and paced like a treadmill with the button stuck, this movie is like a sledgehammer blow to the face that keeps feeling numb the day after like you've been in a horrible fight. Or something. If I'm allowed to throw in a fun fact, Alejandro Amenabar named one of the victims Castro because that was the professor that kept failing him in film school. The subject in question was screenplay. Seeing how he handles the suspense in this movie so brilliantly, he must have not cared and handed it in with typos and crap. I know I do. The actors play their parts so well I ended up caring for the characters on a personal level. I can't even remember the last time I achieved that. Anyway, not wanting everybody to die in a movie makes a highly effective thriller, near impossible to make, but I can only assume so rewarding when things fall into place. This movie is good to the point that my unstructured ramblings can't even do it justice.

das-d Amenabar in The Others was a gem. With that expectation I watched this. And what I got was a lot of promises, showing the signs that this person will, after some time make a great movie, but not a great movie itself. It has quite a lot of those youth eccentricities, starting from the incident of Castro as the name of the teacher, and in reality there in the Academy a teacher having that name, the very youthful tendency of talking in multiple removes, starting from the very concept of the circular structure, a film about gore around 'snuff' films being made in a 'mass communication' academy, that is, a film study center. Continuously the 'mass communication' thing cross reference is there. Quite a lot of them are very witty, like, the list of camera buyers including the name of the director, and interplay of happenings between TV and film, and many more. But, after all, they have that 'terrible infant' effect, while I was expecting the mature master touch of 'The Others'. Quite a lot of the thrill thing was technical thrill, not a product of internal tension. Anyway, a good film, and showing the making of a talent.