A REAL FRIEND

Little Estella spends much of her days in solitude, watching horror movies and imagining monsters and vampires. One day, one of her imaginary friends, whom Estella calls Vampiro, begins to visit her more and more often and seems to be following her, even going so far as to eliminate those who appear too intrusive in the life of the child and her mother. Who is the Vampiro in reality? What does he want from Estella? "Películas para no dormir" is a series of six TV movies produced by the Spanish Telecinco in association with Filmax by Julio Fernandez. The six films, each with an average duration of just over an hour, can be considered the Spanish response to the American "Masters of Horror", as they bring to the screen a handful of short horror stories directed by well-known directors in the genre. The six directors involved are: Alex De La Iglesia, Jaume Balagueró, Enrique Urbizu, Paco Plaza, Chicho Ibáñez Serrador and Mateo Gil. The title of this series can be considered a citation of a Spanish TV series that aired sporadically from 1964 to 1982 with a total of 31 episodes: "Historias para no dormir". "Adivina quién soy" is the worst episode of the TV movie series "Películas para no dormir", a sterile and messy children's drama that seeks contamination with horror in such a pretextual way that it becomes almost irritating. The idea at the base of the film and which then unfolds in the "plot twist" is not to be thrown away, although a bit banal and known, but the way it is handled really leaves a bad taste in the mouth. First of all, the film takes itself extremely seriously where a bit of irony would not have been bad at all, since seeing continuously in action declared copies of Leatherface or Nosferatu induces more than anything else a smile in the spectator. I am not talking about demencial irony – God forbid – but, given the homage to horror cinema, a bit of self- awareness of intentions would have surely pushed to the use of a less serious and heavy tone. Already heavy, because "Adivina quién soy" is a heavy film, despite its short duration it is hard to watch, it bores and has not a single narrative spark that is not the final climax, although even this is too imprisoned in a sort of sequence of images without rhythm. At the base of it all is fantasy, the imagination of a child who manages to generate monsters, the same creatures that move on the screens of the TV or that take shape through toys. The film follows the maxim that the only way to fight evil is with another evil, even if the second is an idealized evil that is in fact harmless and affectionate (the pathetic figure of Leatherface above all); suddenly the film changes meaning and seeks to demonstrate how the true horror is not the one that comes from horror movies, but the one that resides in the normal everyday routine, in the banal and boring routine of the daily life and only the imagination of a child has the power to transform it into an adventure made of monsters and vampires. The material available was very well suited to give life to a horror adventure film for and by children, a bit indebted to the stories that made up the book series "Goosebumps" which punctually in one scene the protagonist is reading. However, the soporific rhythms and the already cited seriousness of the background make "Adivina quién soy" really indigestible for any type of audience. Mediocre actors starting with Eduard Farelo, who plays in a very unconvincing way – also due to the lack of "physique du role" – the Vampiro. Very television-like direction by the unknown Enrique Urbizu (screenwriter of the Polanski's "The Ninth Gate").