Los Parecidos (aka The Similars)

Review #23: Los Parecidos
a.k.a. The Similars

Some friends of mine have watched The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. I am not among those who have viewed it. It's labelled as being very intense, and that's not something I'm going to binge. I don't need anything that's going to prevent me from sleeping well (more than the usual things that already prevent me from sleeping well). However, I am enough of a fan of the "classics" that one of the aforementioned friends invited a lot of us over to view the 1963 movie The Haunting (which was remade in the 90s). This movie is more of a thriller than a horror film, and it's always a bit off-kilter. Mini-review within a review: you should want this film.

The problem was that when the movie ended, the evening was still young, and we needed something else to watch. Trying to figure out what to put on next is as difficult as trying to pick a place to eat. We looked through the horror listings, not wanting any kind of over-gory splatterfest, but we didn't know much about any of the film titles. Basically, someone who'd already seen a particular movie would tell us what it was about. However, if people had already seen it, they might not want to watch it again when there were other choices.

Somehow, we came across Los Parecidos, which translates to "The Similars". A foreign-language film, no less, but we were all game. It was set on a stormy night in a bus station near Mexico City. This could easily be the setup for one of the better episodes of The Twilight Zone. The set was right out of the 1960s, down to the model of the Coke machine and the style of the nudie magazines. (The only nudity was in the magazines.)

Cutting to the chase: it was goofy fun as the plot unfolded with all the characters. (Even if it wasn't meant to be goofy, we were in a goofy frame of mind.) As this was our second film of the night, people started moving around a bit and eyes weren't always on the screen, so subtitles were missed. This led to a bit of conversation while the film was going on, including guesses on where this was going. (Our predictions were all over the place until the ending where some of us had worked out what was going on.) There was one scene that made one of our group a little squeamish, because of the blood, but otherwise, it was a fun little thriller.

The most surprising thing about the The Similars was discovering that this film was actually made in 2015! It's looks like a 1960s B-film, which is actually a great compliment that they captured the atmosphere so well.

Worth viewing with a group of like-minded people.

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