The Totenwackers – Los Totenwackers (2007)

Directed by: Ibon Cormenzana | 86 minutes | adventure | Actors: Elisa Drabben, Jasper Harris, Azzdine Benaji, Geraldine Chaplin, Natalia Sánchez, Celso Bugallo, Terele Pávez, Mar Regueras, Josep Julien, Iván Morales, Maria de la Pau Pigem, Jesus Del Caso, Abdel Hamid Krim, Carlos Lasarte

Geraldine Chaplin is, of course, initially known for her famous father, Charlie. Born in 1944, Geraldine grew up in Switzerland, where she learned Spanish fluently, among other things. The actress has worked with many famous directors, including Robert Altman, Carlos Saura (her husband for several years), Martin Scorsese, Richard Attenborough and Pedro Almodóvar. The actress fell in love with the southern European countries from an early age, because she can now mainly be seen in Spanish or Italian productions, except for a few trips to Hollywood. In ‘The Totenwackers'(‘Los totenwackers’) she again works with an almost entirely Spanish cast and crew. Here she plays the part of Mrs. Salgado, owner of a beautiful apartment complex in Barcelona, ​​which as a set is one of the few positive points of this film.

Ten-year-old asthmatic girl Sara (Elisa Drabben) moves with her parents and adolescent sister Raquel (Natalia Sánchez) to an apartment managed by the aforementioned Mrs. Salgado. She already has a boyfriend living there: Mahdi (Azzdine Benaji), and unlike Raquel, who is purely interested in make-up, boys and herself, Sara likes the change. When Sara sees Mrs. Salgado being hit by a truck from the roof terrace, she runs downstairs but forgets her inhaler, causing her to pass out and wake up in the hospital. Before she passed out, however, she saw a mysterious green light in the hall of the building that disappeared in Mrs. Salgado’s eyes.

When Sara returns home after a few days, strange things happen: the sound of the TV suddenly gets louder and she sees an old man in their house, whom her parents and sister do not see. Soon Sara is convinced she sees a ghost. Mahdi is skeptical, but John Knole (Jasper Harris), a peer they meet in the stairwell, claims to be looking for paranormal phenomena and for two months his shuttle has been pointing to the building where Sara and Mahdi live. After some starting problems, the three become friends and try to uncover the secret of Sara’s sightings.

The screenplay of the film was written by Antonio Trashorras and David Muñoz, who both debuted with the screenplay for ‘The Devil’s Backbone’, which they co-wrote with Guillermo Del Toro. Not a bad teacher, you might say, but with ‘The Totenwackers’ it doesn’t quite go in the direction of that strong first film. First of all, it is unclear which target group the writers had in mind: you expect that a film with three main characters around the age of ten is also more or less intended for an audience of that age, but in ‘The Totenwackers’ there are a few scenes that are quite terrifying, think of a light version of ‘The Sixth Sense’. Secondly, the screenplay rattles quite a bit, which makes the film unattractive for the adult audience. Many things remain unexplained, the logic is hard to find and here and there the actions of the characters are dubious to say the least. Add to that the fact that for inexplicable reasons the film is very poorly dubbed in English at the Dutch DVD release, which does not benefit the empathy and there are few arguments left to give ‘The Totenwackers’ a chance. Compared to similar films in the recent boom of fantasy films aimed at young audiences, this Spanish production does poorly.