Thesis (1996)

Sadly Over-hyped

One of my all time favorites.

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

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

While working on her Thesis regarding the fascination for violence in the media and entertainment, a student uncovers a snuff movie and suspects the people involved in its making may have ties to her university.Despite its gruesome subject, this film plays very much like an 80s whodunnit classic. In fact, the camera work in several sequences reminded me of the early thrillers directed by Brian DePalma.What makes this film is interesting is that for its release time (1996) the film in a way foreshadows what was to come as far as violence and how it is portrayed and promoted in the wave of filmmakers. Amenábar wisely elects to keep most of the violence off screen. Sometimes, it's almost as if you were watching a torture porn film while covering your eyes with your hand during the torture scenes.The social commentary is great but unfortunately takes a backseat to the whodunnit mystery. We do understand that Angela, the student, is quite conflicted when it comes to violence. She is both fascinated and repulsed by displays of violence and other morbid topics. Two other characters help form a triangle of sort. Angela befriends, Chema an amateur of questionable movies who fully acknowledges his own attraction to violence. Chema is very much a typical, socially awkward person but as the movie progresses, it is nice to see the relationship between him and Angela evolve. The third character is Bosco, played admirably by Eduardo Noriega. Angela suspects Bosco may be involved in the production of snuff movies yet falls for his charming ways.There are several other characters but Amenábar only brushes on the surface of those. What we are left with is a good movie with some tense scenes but unfortunately also a movie that feels a bit dated. If Amenábar had explored the Thesis angle a little more, this might have been a classic. Instead, he focuses on the mystery aspect and a few thrills.A solid debut by this director who did much better later in his career.

I have only one thing to say about the movie "Thesis" (1996): yuck! Directed by the same man who did "Open Your Eyes" (1997), "Thesis" deals with a female college student studying violence in film. She makes friends with a misfit who has a video collection of porn and ultra-violence. By a bizarre chance, she encounters a snuff film. She and the misfit realize that the victim is a girl from campus who disappeared two years ago. They begin to theorize that someone on campus is doing the killings. But who? And now, it seems, the killer(s) are after her . . .While I must admit the film scared me, the subject matter was just too gross. Movies like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III" (which I also watched today) I find at best humorous, at worst boring. But I always know that they're fakes: from the moment they're first conceived by some drunken screenwriter looking for his big break, they're fakes. And even though, of course, "Thesis" is fake, the idea behind it is that REAL people would REALLY torture and kill on screen for the enjoyment of other REAL people. So, again: yuck!

"Thesis" by director Alejandro Amenábar is interesting movie. The first part builds up suspense well. Angela is doing an examination paper at film school in Madrid. She wants to explore why is death and killing so fascinating to so people. She teams up with another student called Chema, who is pathologically obsessed with violence. They discover snuff movie that shows a young woman torture horribly and killed. When they find out it was actually a student at the university, things take more drastic turn into the morbid. While the first half was done fairly gd the second part of the movie was a big disappointment. It moved at a snail's slow pace and was far too seedy to be enjoyable to my taste, even if the point is that maybe we should not explore these types of things past certain limits. I would have rate this higher, but the movie took a turn for the worse. If you into snuff movie analysis, this is probably worth a look, otherwise stay away.

What a terrific film. It scares the hell out of me every time I watch it. It's cleverly made, and the subject matter is one of terrifying myth. We all like to think that because we've never seem a snuff film, they don't exist, but they probably do, and if we really want to, and if we scour the planet for years, we'll probably find at least one. So, they're out there, and the premise in this film is that the next one could star you! I thought the script was solid, and the acting was superb. Not many films manage to scare me, but this one certainly did. All the factors were more than decent, and thus contributed to a wonderful film, full of surprises and suspense.