I want to say that Adrián and Ramiro Bogliano's Penumbra feels like it could be better served as a short film; however, that would ignore that Ti West actually made a very successful, riveting film out of the same material in House of the Devil. That film was an extremely slow burn that essentially asked us to watch a girl house-sit for nearly an hour before the main action kicked in around a lunar eclipse. Penumbra is similarly staged and structured, only this time we’ve globe-hopped down to an Argentine apartment building that’s going to house strange events during a solar eclipse.
In that apartment building is Marga (Cristina Brondo), a tough-as-nails Spanish lawyer who conducts her business with swift, hard-nosed efficiency. She’s attempting to sell off an apartment to an interested party, but she keeps getting caught up in the tedium of everyday life: she loses her belongings, gets into a scuffle with a zealous vagrant, and is forced to engage in small talk with a fellow Spaniard. All the while, she’s unaware that she’s assisting a mysterious cult who has a sinister ritual to carry out once the sun goes black.
Penumbra is a bit more of a bristly film than House of the Devil; I hate to belabor that comparison, but it’s difficult to ignore the similarities, so you’re stuck with it for at least this paragraph. Whereas West’s film was marked by unmistakable eeriness, the brothers Bogliano present something a bit more off-kilter. They keep their cards close, and one only has a few indicators that something terrible is bound to happen here. The impending solar eclipse is an obvious indicator, but it takes a backseat for much of the run-time; we also know that something terrible has happened to a prostitute due to an opening sequence.
Otherwise, the film relies on a sort of disorienting effect with bizarre music and interesting camerawork; the score is especially odd and sometimes reminiscent of those early giallos that relied on discordant and incongruent upbeat tones. There’s a certain sort of invasiveness to the music here, as it seems to be always penetrating each scene. It gives way to strictly horror fare once the scary stuff begins to happen, and it’s paired with some dizzying lenswork. As the narrative begins to finally spiral into its mad climax, the camera begins to tilt back and forth; as Marga begins to realize that her world is being turned on its head, so too do we.
This all sounds very good, and it is. The problem is that it’s preceded by absolute tedium, and, quite simply, Marga herself is ferociously unpleasant. She takes the aggressive lawyer routine a bit too far, as she voraciously devours anyone in her path. However, Brondo’s presence is difficult to deny, as she fully realizes this role, and carries the movie to wherever it’s going. It just so happens that you hope it’s heading towards her swift demise since she’s wasted so much of your time talking to various people on her cell phone (there are at least two characters whom we never see). Her prickly interactions eventually do have a sort of a payoff, but I don’t know that it was worth seeing it all. So much of this film could have been condensed and had an even more powerful effect.
These proceedings are admittedly contradictory; her fast-talking wheeling and dealing carry an undeniable energy that cuts down on any sort of genuine creepiness (compare this to the low key stuff in House of the Devil, such as the girl flipping past a horror movie on TV--okay, last comparison, I promise). But it also feels so slow, and my attention wasn’t sufficiently grabbed until the cult revealed themselves and their insidious intentions. I suppose one might say that last act hits viewers like Marga herself: like a brick wall that signals that all the tedious things she’s done during the day might not matter because she might not survive the eclipse.
I obviously won’t reveal whether or not that’s the case; I will say that the film eventually ramps up to a typically gory sacrifice sequence that’s frantic and high-strung. If anything, the Boglianos capture the frightening surety of fanaticism. The cult’s single-minded, collective belief in their cause is chilling, and the cruel efficiency of their ritual is well-realized. Had all of this been preceded by more than mere tedium and a sympathetic character, it might have been truly impact. The poorly-written subtitles didn’t help matters, either; hopefully IFC will get that fixed before this makes a wide release. When that happens, give it a look on a VOD platform, but don’t be surprised if you find it to be as dim as an eclipse. Rent it!