CHARLY: DAYS OF BLOOD (1990) - Hysteria Lives! slasher movie review

TERROR. SUSPENSE ... A NIGHTMARE!!!

**

akaCHARLY: DIAS DE SANGRE

Directed by: Carlos Galettini

Starring: Norman Briski, Martín Guerrero, Fabián Gianola, Patricio Ryan, Julieta Melogno, Adrián Suar, Pia Galiano, Pilar Masciocchi

Choice dialogue: “Same as always: teenagers!”

Slasher Trash with Panache?

Review: JA Kerswell

If you thought North Americans ruled the roost for SOV atrocities in 1990, somebody in Argentina said, "Hold my cerveza!” However, if I had to review CHARLY: DAYS OF BLOOD in two words, I’d say “mercifully short”. A stodgy and often bewildering tale of young people being bumped off at a remote house by a horribly scarred, hooded killer. Although enlivened by some juicy gore in its closing act, this super obscure Argentinian late entry in the slasher sweepstakes forgets to add the actual twist to its highly telegraphed twist ending, leaving viewers scratching their heads at the end of its scant 73-minute running time.

Someone is killing nubile women, and the film opens with a gathering of three excitable young ladies partying in a bathroom (two topless, splashing each other in a bubble bath, and the other trying out shades of lipstick in the mirror). This is like catnip to our heavy-breathing, mystery psycho, who proceeds to kill them (off camera). When the police discover the scene (with one of the soapy corpses pinned to the bathroom floor with a pitchfork through her neck), Inspector Santos (Norman Briski) curiously intones, “I love evil, but I hate evil doers”—which, understandably, elicits a swivel-eyed WTF? from the cop standing next to him.

However, the Inspector has other things on his mind. Dressed in beige shorts and knee-length socks, he invites a young man, Dani (Martín Guerrero), around to discuss his son Charly (Fabián Gianola). He is worried about his 27-year-old teenager, as all he does is mope around the house. So, he suggests Dani whisk his son off for a weekend at the family’s sprawling estate. Although he forgets to mention that some years earlier, Charly’s brother Marcello (Patricio Ryan) was burnt to death in that very same house during a prank that went wrong; his younger brother helpless to save him has been plagued by guilt ever since. The Inspector moves the conversation to the bathroom while he takes a piss in front of the young man, saying that he wouldn’t mind Dani hiring a sex worker for his son as long as she is nice.

Good to his word, Dani gathers up a vanful of friends and transports Charly off to his family’s holiday home, where all those happy, crispy memories were made. He tells them they will have the “Most fun weekend of all time!” (which turns out to be categorically untrue for both the characters and the audience). Perhaps understandably, Charly is still a total Debbie Downer; seemingly more interested in telling his date, Sandra (Julieta Melogno) (who we don’t know if she is paid to be there or not), that if he can’t be a doctor, he would like to work in a morgue. Surprisingly not put off, her efforts to talk about stiffs of a different kind fall on deaf ears, and Charly stays on the couch and leaves her frustrated and alone in bed. Meanwhile, a hooded figure is skulking around in the Rhodedendrums and peeking through the windows.
In the morning, they find a dead cat hanging from a tree (which looks disturbingly like the real thing). Rather than heading for the hills, some of the group proceed to play with a Ouija board—which starts to spell out M-A-R-C-E … Even when one of the women is ambushed in the kitchen by a hooded figure carrying a giant blade (but otherwise is unharmed), they choose to stay and continue to pair off for some softcore frottage. However, eventually, the Peeping Tom finally gets bored of their antics and starts to chop and hack his way through the weekend holidaymakers, accompanied by what sounds like someone randomly pushing buttons on a Casio synthesiser …

Character development, perhaps, isn’t one of the slasher genre’s strongest suits, but the lack of distinct personalities in CHARLY: DAYS OF BLOOD seems like we know less about this splatterfodder than we did at the start of the movie. Even worse, the first half drags along like a tortoise delivering an Empanada. The film is not quite bottom-of-the-barrel, but it’s certainly adjacent. Admittedly, things do perk up when the killings actually start (and they are surprisingly plasma-heavy). However, the film’s biggest problem is that it completely fumbles its twist (and can you really spoil a non-twist?). Anyone who has ever seen a slasher movie (and even those who haven’t) will find it glaringly obvious that Marcello, the singed sibling, has been hanging around ever since going up like a bonfire (and presumably oversaw renovations). However, … we see the Argentinian Cropsy stalking the house with a massive blade in hand. It is suggested that Charly may be hallucinating that he is his brother. The problem is, at least one of the others sees the horribly burned figure and doesn’t finger Charly, so unless he is in quick, crispy drag, it makes zero sense.

A few other takeaways from CHARLY: DAYS OF BLOOD are as follows. It features a scene where a couple dip what look like cherry tomatoes in champagne during a romantic interlude (perhaps strawberries were out of season?). Plus another moment when two characters take a sit-down break from trying to save one of the girls, who has been taken hostage, to have a generous snifter of cognac. Perhaps the funniest gaffe is when two girls try to escape in the van to drive to the police station from the remote mansion, but get stuck in the mud and have to abandon the vehicle; when the closing shots of the movie show that the house is surrounded by other properties, and their closest neighbour is 15 seconds walk away from the front gate.
One striking aspect of the film is that the cast speaks Spanish with an Italian sing-song lilt (typical of the dialect in Buenos Aires, where the film was shot, which had one of the largest influxes of Italian immigrants last century). Director Carlos Galettini (who, perhaps surprisingly, made some award-nominated films later in his career) was better known for his comedy output. This might suggest that there is some satirical intent with CHARLY: DAYS OF BLOOD, but the reality is that it succeeds in being intentionally funny as much as it succeeds in being intentionally scary—not one iota. Fabián Gianola, as Charly, went on to a long career (especially in Tira diaria, the more serious-in-tone cousin of the telenovela). Adrián Suar, as Pablo (whose one standout character quirk is singing a song about how he was beaten by everyone he knew as a child), went on to become one of the most successful producers in Argentine TV. Veteran actor Norman Briski spends much of the film with his head in his hands. And who can blame him?

Seemingly made for the home market—a relatively rare Argentine horror movie at the time—the film was released straight-to-video there and has been little-seen outside the country since. There is, honestly, little to recommend CHARLY: DAYS OF BLOOD, although those with an affinity for SOV slasher trash might scavange some entertainment in its low-fi vintage charm.