The horror genre in Venezuelan cinema.

The Venezuelan film productions have many details in common such as social themes, violence and scripts with excess of folklore, which with a modest budget have generated good results but not extraordinary. Venezuelan films with more international success have gone unnoticed on national screens fulfilling the precept that no one is a prophet in their land, as an example I can name: There is someone there (2014) a documentary film that talks about Autism or As it is called correctly in its nomenclature Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), it was criticized for its silent dialogue and slowness of the scenes, but internationally acclaimed and deserving of several awards.

Bad hair (2014) was another misunderstood at the national box office and for foreign critics was well accepted, I can also call Tamara (2016) that was almost a national failure but a pride for its writer for foreign acceptance. With all this I want to conclude that the drama genre is not valued internally, it seems that we are still avid for violence and action as in the remembered Sicario (1994), Express kidnapping (2005) and The Zero Hour (2010), very successful productions but with little reflective fiber. Comedy films we love, we are very good, we have the formula for success in that genre and Papita, mani, toston (2013) is our best reference. The historical cut as The Liberator (2014) are our favorites, in this genre we have a large repertoire of almost one production per year, we are experts in this subject.

Actually we have no expertise in this issue, we are novices and we have only two films of this exacting genre, these productions have been very ambitious to capture a new market of spectators in productions that require big investments for dark environments, a lot of suspense and stories convincing, they are short-lived and have been pioneers not only in their category, but also in aspects of production using the available resources in a convenient way. Our two exponents of the genre are The house at the end of time (2013) and Gaspar Mendoza's Hell. (2015), of which I will make a small criticism separately.

It is the first and pioneer that shows the path that others should follow in terms of production and originality of the story, for its premiere it was the movie most seen in the Venezuelan box office, descending to international titles, because the curiosity of seeing the first film Creole terror was incredible, in addition to the promotion made the success at the box office was of such a dimension that has not yet been overcome. The make-up work was extraordinary, it managed to give 70 years to the beautiful face of the actress Ruddy Rodriguez, the production the standing applause but the plot not so much. I belong to the public terror follower and within the big list of titles I've seen, this was like eating a candy, it did not scare me and instead it touched me, they made the mistake of explaining the paranormal facts in a lot of detail, killing terror , but this is only a personal option and I think it is more framed in suspense. Even now it is still an excellent avant-garde option.

This is the proof that with a modest budget you can achieve great things if you have ingenuity and a good plot to develop. But it is not the best example of horror film, the script is well constructed but far from terrifying, the suspense can be felt only in the first minutes and the classic formula of the cemetery and the night worker who looks after the tombs is a worn cliche. The performances are good, the development of the story is also, we can fantasize that those facts were real or inspired by them, the production has flaws in aspects of setting and special effects, which means that we must continue working to improve in this category of the cinema and this movie gives us the tools to keep improving and one day be as good in terror as the Japanese, do not you think? Dreaming costs nothing.