Romina ★★

MEXICAN writer/director Diego Cohen’s influences for his 2018 horror film Romina are clear.

With his seminal 1967 film Weekend, the story of a couple on a road trip to kill one of their families, French New Wave director Jean-Luc Goddard chose to bring horror out of the shadows and into the bright daylight.

In doing so he brought a cold, frightening new realism to the genre, suggesting death and degradation can occur at any time of the day or night in any location.

On the other side of the world, Wes Craven adopted a similar approach with 1972’s Last House On The Left which seemed all the more controversial for portraying horrifying sexual violence outside in full sunlight and an otherwise idyllic forest setting.

Romina is nowhere near as good as those films; in fact it’s barely average.

The premise and script are simple but they aren’t the problem. A story of existentialist murder doesn’t need a lot of context.

The problems are poor acting and camera work that is meant to be experimental and avant-grade in keeping with the themes but actually comes across as mis-judged and lacking discipline.

The approach somewhat works for the first 20 minutes of the film when Cohen is establishing a growing sense of dread surrounding the characters spending a weekend in the woods, hence my reasons for drawing comparisons with the other films.

But the technical skill and discipline just isn’t there to sustain such a lofty homage, even with a sub 90-minute running time.

While I became bored an hour in, the final act does have a couple of genuinely disturbing moments.

Cohen, who also shot and edited the film, has the right ideas but currently not enough skill to translate them successfully to the screen.

Perhaps with more money, a better cinematographer and guidance, he could bring us something special.