El Cuerpo (The Body) (2012)

☆ ☆ ☆

El Cuerpo (The Body) (2012) – O. Paulo

Slick Spanish thriller that takes the Hitchcockian path of revealing who the killer is from the start and then creating suspense as the police close in on him.  I can’t remember Hitch using flashbacks however (except perhaps in Vertigo) but here they add to the tension because we can see moments when even the victim may have discovered the plot to kill her.  This is a key part of the plot because, you see, the victim’s body has gone missing and all signs point to the possibility that she is still alive and leading the police to clues that identify her “killer” (and, of course, tormenting him psychologically along the way).  The whole film takes place in the morgue (more or less). Belen Rueda (from The Orphanage, 2007) plays the victim, a successful but emotionally cruel businesswoman, and Hugo Silva plays her younger husband with the incentive to kill his wife arising due to her large fortune and his much younger mistress (Aura Garrido) who wishes to have him all for herself.  Jose Coronado plays the stereotypic seedy police detective with problems of his own.  So, in many respects, El Cuerpo is straight genre film-making with no aim except to thrill and to entice viewers with a hard-to-anticipate twist ending.  The cinematic style is noirish (rainy nights, dark medical rooms) but nothing special.  Whether the ending is earned or not is up to viewers to judge – but, as with many pictures of this type, thinking back over the film after the ending is known does highlight its improbabilities.  But don’t let that spoil your fun.