Fans of the mighty Orphanage (2007) and even mightier Pans Labyrinth (2006) will be aware of a new wave of Spanish/Mexican psychological horror films, and this is the latest offering. The comparisons with The Orphanage are many, but this is a slightly more overwrought, slightly less effective chiller, but still with lots of brilliant moments.
Like that film this has a young mum at its centre, in this case oceanographer Maria who is bringing up her five-year-old boy Diego on her own. She gets a month-long shift working on the island of El Hierro, but on the virtually empty ferry Diego disappears. She is distraught, the police do their best but facilities on the bleak, lunar-like island are limited. Eventually they find a body, but when Maria goes to identify it she insists the boy is not her son. The police insist on a DNA test but can only do one in three days time, so Maria is forced to check into a desperately creaky old hotel and explore the island.
The young woman suspects everyone the island is populated only by some oddball campers and the police, but she seems to see her son or echoes of him everywhere. Is she going mad or is she on the right track? When she meets another mother whose son has also disappeared she becomes obsessed with the idea there is a paedophile somewhere on the wretched rock.
Like The Orphanage, Hierro has a stupendous central performance by its female lead. Anaya gives absolutely everything as Maria, driven apparently to insanity by her loss and willing to do anything to get her boy back. Even though she is an apparently frail girl she trudges up and down mountains, swims in the sea and drives like a maniac in pursuit. Its a tremendously physical performance, yet the scene in which she seems most at risk is when she has a simple nosebleed in the shower.
Overall though, despite some amazing visuals the island is as wind-swept and colourless as a desert the story tips all too often into being overwrought and over-ripe. The hotel is just too slimy, the policeman a little too downbeat, the sea little too crashing. There is a twist at the end which virtually has flashing lights and a siren around it, so soon can you see it coming, and it seems overstretched even at a modest running time. There is also the seemingly obligatory cuts into David Lynch territory, as Marias hallucinations take on a dreamy, watery feel, but add little to the atmosphere once that is created.
Spanish films have come into their own in the past decade, but Hierro can only be considered a minor addition to their output. If youve seen The Orphanage before theres a nagging suspicion youve seen this done before, and better. Top marks for the performances and visuals, middling marks for the way the story is handled and the longeurs.
Overall verdict: Haunting Spanish psychological story with a committed central performance and many atmospheric moments, but theres a sense of déjà vu from Spanish cinema. Its been done before and better.
Reviewer: Mike Martin