The Incident
Starring Raúl Méndez, Humberto Busto, Nailea Norvind, Hernán Mendoza
Directed by Isaac Ezban
You don’t need to resort to CG tricks in order to terrify an audience. Sometimes, as in the case of Mexican thriller The Incident (El Incidente), keeping the look and feel as close to recognizable reality as possible will leave your viewers peeing their pants once the end credits roll.
In The Incident, we watch as two groups of people – a couple of thugs and a cop in an apartment stairwell, and a blended family on a road trip –realize they’ve somehow gotten stuck in a time loop.
Restricted by unseen forces to environments that never change (save for the backpacks, store shelves and vending machines in their vicinities that somehow restock daily), the characters wrestle with anxiety, terror, despair, and the choices that preceded their imprisonment in the inexplicable limbo.
It’s a heart-pounding, frantic and disconcerting journey for audiences and characters alike as the action moves to a conclusion that is both terrifying and strangely hopeful. Because they’ve refrained from CG tricks and kept the visuals relatable, the action is doubly terrifying, like we’re only an incident away from a time limbo of our own.
The Incident is one of the scariest movies I’ve seen all year. The performances are top-notch and transcend the subtitles. Experience the delicious terror yourself this weekend, when The Incident screens at the Vancouver International Film Festival Friday night at the Rio Theatre (11:30pm).
