Sudor Frio / Cold Sweat (2010)

Sudor Frio is a style over substance horror film from Argentina. Director Adrián García Bogliano has done some interesting movies in the past. Not only as a director, but also as a writer. I really enjoyed his ''No Moriré Sola'' which was an interesting Rape & Revenge flick that took it's time to create this horrible and disgusting vibe. So i knew what he was capable of, would it live up to my (quality) expectations?

Well yes it did. 'Cold Sweat' (English title) turned out great. I didn't know exactly what to expect from the actual content, i was just hoping for an interesting atmosphere and hopefully some eye-catching gore. The story works best when it's a suprise. But be aware that it's full of unlikely stuff just to higher the entertainment value. Most of it doesn't seem to plausible and things get thrown in just for the heck of it. And after all, that's the way i like it the most. Who needs logics when there's cool shit flying all over the place?

But to give you a general idea of the story:  Facundo Espinosa plays the roll of the protagonist who's looking for his ex-girlfriend (no questions asked why he'd care so much) whom dissapeared mysteriously. He tracks her down by following some IP adresses and bladiebla he finds this old house. Once he (and some chick he's with) both entered the building, it's time for some serious business.

As i said before, it's definitely a style over substance kind of film. So don't expect anything twisty on a intellectual level. There's a historic background story that involves a serious amount of dynamite, some unimportant motives and plenty of unneccesary situations just to spice things up a bit. We find ourselves in one steady enviroment with two old but seriously naughty men. They lure girls into their house to experiment on them. Oeh kinky, but it's risky.

The risky stuff is shown right away. Remember the dynamite part? Well, dynamite mainly consists of nitroglycerin (let's just stick to 'nitro' from now on) and that's a (wiki)fact. It seems like this substance is kinda unstable and therefor dangerous, like ''omg it will blow for almost no reason'' dangerous. The first amazingly gory scene involves this substance (like all the others, actualy) and a naked girl dangling in a room that has a handy one-way mirror for us to look though. The combination of nitro and a naked chick turns out marvelous, fantastic and superb at the same time. I'd suggest you go and see it for yourself.

We're confrontated with multiple other scenes in which the victims are soaked in this bullshit. It gets very thrilling from time to time. Not only due to the fact that every move could be fatal, but mainly because of the fantastic sound design and the soundtrack in general. It has haunting bells, loud guitar riffs, loads of heavily distorted crap, high squeeking sounds and some other stuff thrown into it. It beats the scary noise of a handicapped bird throwing up, that's how great it is. With all seriousness (that's what i'm all about), it's great fun while keeping it exceedingly suspenseful.

That suspenseful feel goes away after a while, the trick is getting a little old but then...yes, we get something that is sooo f-ing cool, it's almost an instant classic scene. We see a clash between one of the old guys in an awesome toxic suit (see the still) and the neighbours. It involves a nice amount of nitro and some razor sharp slow motion footage to make it yet again: all about the style. It literally blew me away. But that one scene doesn't blow away the (tiny) bad spot on this film.

I didn't really like the ex-gf rescue bullshit. It was to predictable if you ask me. There's a nice add down in the basement where she's kept at though. Which is a great example of 'things getting thrown into it without any explanation just because it's so cool'. But i'm not spoiling anything on that part. 'Cold Sweat' is worth your precious time, believe me. Definitely one of the best horror movies i've come across in a long time, it's suprising, a blast (....) and it will keep you hooked, thrilled and excited for the entire 70 minutes.

Score: 92/100