"The Spanish answer to Hostel" boasts the sleeve of the DVD for H6. But whilst it's true that this film's relentless scenes of torture and violence might possibly appeal to the audiences of such modern horror, I suspect that fans of that particular franchise could feel cheated by the description used on the packaging. This isn't mainstream splatter for indiscriminate teens; it's a study of a psychotic serial killer that bears far more resemblance to a handful of other, perhaps lesser-known horror films than to the work of Eli Roth.
Sure, certain aspects of director Martín Garrido Barón's brutal chiller can be compared to The Silence of the Lambs and the Saw films, but other parts are more reminiscent of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, American Psycho, The Last Horror Movie, nasty low-budget crap-fest Scrapbook, and even recent French shocker Martyrs. One thing is certain though: there's not a single sadistic East European in sight.
Instead, there's a deranged Spaniard, with a plastic sheet covered room and a shiny new chainsaw ready for action.
Said sicko is Antonio Frau (Fernando Acaso), who has recently been released from prison after serving 15 years for killing his girlfriend. Almost immediately after gaining his freedom, Antonio finds himself a wife (buxom nurse Rosa, who is desperate to escape life at her parents' home), inherits a rundown guest-house in a sleazy part of town, and begins writing a diary in which he catalogues every detail of his new hobby: killing drifters, prostitutes, pimps and junkies!
While his wife is at work (she does the night-shift at a hospital, where she carries on her affair with a married doctor), Antonio is busy luring drug-addled hookers and other losers into his home, killing the men and taking the women to Room 6, where he 'purifies' them through repeated rape (amusingly 'working around' their knickers), torture, and finally, dismemberment. Meanwhile, the police inspector who previously arrested Antonio is hot on the case, and soon suspects that his old acquaintance is responsible for the area's lack of hookers.
Very grim and brutal in tone, but surprisingly light on the explicit violence (plenty of blood, but not much graphic gore—not that it needs it to offend), H6 is definitely not a film for all the family (unless that family sits in armchairs made from human remains). The awful treatment to which Antonio subjects his victims is extremely harrowing, and is recommended viewing only for hardened horror fans who are numb to the sight of petrified young women pleading for their lives before being sawn into tiny pieces (some of which get served up as dinner for Rosa).
The only thing that prevents H6 from being one of the best 'extreme' horrors to come out of Europe in recent years is the weak ending, which attempts to convince viewers that Antonio is a genius of Hannibal Lector proportions who has concocted a clever ruse to ensure that he receives a lighter than expected sentence. I can't help but feel that the film deserved a much more nihilistic denouement worthy of all that had gone before.
7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.
Sure, certain aspects of director Martín Garrido Barón's brutal chiller can be compared to The Silence of the Lambs and the Saw films, but other parts are more reminiscent of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, American Psycho, The Last Horror Movie, nasty low-budget crap-fest Scrapbook, and even recent French shocker Martyrs. One thing is certain though: there's not a single sadistic East European in sight.
Instead, there's a deranged Spaniard, with a plastic sheet covered room and a shiny new chainsaw ready for action.
Said sicko is Antonio Frau (Fernando Acaso), who has recently been released from prison after serving 15 years for killing his girlfriend. Almost immediately after gaining his freedom, Antonio finds himself a wife (buxom nurse Rosa, who is desperate to escape life at her parents' home), inherits a rundown guest-house in a sleazy part of town, and begins writing a diary in which he catalogues every detail of his new hobby: killing drifters, prostitutes, pimps and junkies!
While his wife is at work (she does the night-shift at a hospital, where she carries on her affair with a married doctor), Antonio is busy luring drug-addled hookers and other losers into his home, killing the men and taking the women to Room 6, where he 'purifies' them through repeated rape (amusingly 'working around' their knickers), torture, and finally, dismemberment. Meanwhile, the police inspector who previously arrested Antonio is hot on the case, and soon suspects that his old acquaintance is responsible for the area's lack of hookers.
Very grim and brutal in tone, but surprisingly light on the explicit violence (plenty of blood, but not much graphic gore—not that it needs it to offend), H6 is definitely not a film for all the family (unless that family sits in armchairs made from human remains). The awful treatment to which Antonio subjects his victims is extremely harrowing, and is recommended viewing only for hardened horror fans who are numb to the sight of petrified young women pleading for their lives before being sawn into tiny pieces (some of which get served up as dinner for Rosa).
The only thing that prevents H6 from being one of the best 'extreme' horrors to come out of Europe in recent years is the weak ending, which attempts to convince viewers that Antonio is a genius of Hannibal Lector proportions who has concocted a clever ruse to ensure that he receives a lighter than expected sentence. I can't help but feel that the film deserved a much more nihilistic denouement worthy of all that had gone before.
7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.