Víctor Erice

(On Cable TV, October 2022) I’m not going to suggest that writer-director Víctor Erice The Spirit of the Beehive is a bad movie, because it’s not. Even in the semi-comatose slumber that the film induced, I could recognize that it’s a skillfully made film, one with some thematic depth that goes beyond booga-booga horror movie stuff. There’s a delicious filiation between this film and the better Guillermo del Toro Spanish-language films (The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth) in that they both focus on kids (presenting events from their point of view), in isolated areas, during a repressive regime, in small subtle touches more than grand horrifying set-pieces. It feels, in many ways, like a much newer film, one that fits with some of the more subtle uses of horror we’ve seen over the past two decades. Not that the 1970s were bereft of subtle horror—but that discussion swiftly takes us to the soporific effect of the film, in which themes and ideas and a subtle touch don’t necessarily lead to a better experience as much as sleep. I had a very hard time getting into The Spirit of the Beehive. I thought that the link with the classic 1931 Frankenstein would be enough to pull me in, but it wasn’t. There’s clearly a political dimension to the film that escaped me—I know about Franco’s regime, but not enough to interpret its influence on the narrative and the period of history it depicts. The pacing is also a significant issue—the film deals in ambiguity, non-conclusions, gauzy cinematography and languid pacing… all of which seems custom-designed to frustrate. I’m still happy I saw The Spirit of the Beehive: I think it’s a minor milestone of world horror cinema. But I don’t think I will willingly sit through it again any time soon.