The home invasion brutality of Kidnapped was by and large considered one of the best horror movies of 2011. There was nothing fancy about it but it had a solid storyline with cruel characters with no regard for human life set against the backdrop of a rich family being terrorized nonstop. No one seemed to mind it was subtitled.
While the Spanish-language horror flick Cold Sweat is nowhere near as polished as Kidnapped (nor is the plot as developed), it is entertaining and has some originality not found in the current crop of horror being released.
Set in Argentina in modern times, we are first told of the revolutions that happened in the country in the 1970s and how a radical group stole shitload of explosives before being rounded up by the government. But the explosives were never found.
Flash forward to today, where a dude is trying to locate his girlfriend believing her to have an online affair but soon after dropped off the map. So he gets his chick friend to contact the same guy she was online chatting with and they go to their rundown house to search for her.
Thats when things get weird.
Apparently, some old dudes are trying to solve math equations that hide hidden language and can only be seen by tortured, hot Spanish chicks. If the ladies cant solve the equation (again being some sort of mind puzzle), they get blown up with nitroglycerin I guess it saves bullets.
While it is an interesting idea, it is an idea that is never fully established or explained. We have no idea while these old guys are trying to solve these equations or why they believe hot chicks can solve them under duress; it just is what it is.
But not all the chicks that cant decipher the equations are killed. Some that are labeled “strong enough” (again, for what we have no clue) are stripped naked and locked inside the bowels of the building becoming feral, mindless creatures with a taste for human flesh. I guess director Adrián García Bogliano needed to work in some sort of zombie-type characters into the mix.
Cold Sweat is a mishmash of ideas and strange shit happening and a lot of it doesnt make a lot of sense such as why would they completely cover a chick in nitro in their house just a few feet away from the entire cache of explosives they stole from the revolution? Thats just a Darwin Award waiting to happen.
But there are some really funny and cool moments including:
- The best old man with a walker verses chick completely covered in nitroglycerin chase in the history of film.
- The best use of mysterious liquids in various containers being thrown everywhere.
- Slow motion flying glorious gibs.
- Headless body in topless dungeon.
- Loads of naked, feral chicks being kept in the walls just out of sheer randomness.
- A slew of hot, sweaty (and oft naked) Spanish chicks in precarious situations.
- Limbless emo kid luring these hot chicks to a house of doom.
- Awkward cocaine line party.
- Acid to the face just a flesh wound.
- Unnecessary flashbacks that end up being funny because they dont explain the motivation of the old men.
Obviously, for these moments alone it is worth checking out.
