‘The Night Of The Virgin’ (Fantasia Film Festival review)

Produced by Kevin Iglesias
Written by Guillermo Guerrero
Directed by Roberto San Sebastián
Starring Javier Bodalo, Miriam Martin,
Victor Amilibia, Ignatius Farray, Rocío Suárez,
Javi Cañón, Ernesto Fernández
A Fantasia Film Festival Selection

It’s New Year’s Eve beginning 2016 and Nico has been dragged out to the clubs by his friends. Dressed in the best suit he could find Nico attempts to pick up any girl he can with no luck until he catches the eye of Medea, an eccentric older lady.

Once back at Medea’s apartment the evening goes from weird to downright creepy as we learn more about her. It appears that Medea has dedicated her life to following the Nepali goddess Naoshi, the goddess of the unborn, and Nico may be an unwitting pawn in her plans.

The evening’s events quickly go from creepily awkward to terrifying with the arrival of Spider, Medea’s recently ex-boyfriend, who arrives at the apartment and is furious. Now with Medea’s behavior inside the apartment becoming more erratic and threatening and Spider pounding at the door screaming insults and threats Nico is caught in a situation in which his chances of escaping safely are getting slimmer by the minute.

The Night OF The Virgin is a curious film as it is at once a riotously disgusting splatter comedy and also an intensely gritty and atmospheric creep-fest. It is a strange aesthetic combination as if members of the French Extremist movement of the early 2000’s were shooting the early Peter Jackson films.

First time feature director Roberto San Sebastian has certainly set the bar high with his first feature as it includes a multitude of outrageous special effects while conveying an interesting story which happens to be soaked in bodily fluids. Plus, The Night Of The Virgin screenwriter Guillermo Guerrero has concocted an intriguing plot as well as unique and memorable characters and an interesting new mythology with the goddess Naoshi.

Unfortunately though I do have one minor issue with The Night Of The Virgin and that is it’s pace and running time. In many of the scene’s the films intentional slow build works wonderfully while in other instances it sucks the tension out of the situation leaving only the tedium of the shot. While this also plays into the second issue, which is that The Night Of The Virgin is just under two hours long and in my opinion, would be just as effective if it had been trimmed down to the ninety to one hundred minute range. But overall this isn’t a deal breaker for me enjoying the movie as I though it was an appropriately disgusting and entertaining outing.

So if you think you have a strong enough stomach to deal with the gallons of bodily fluids spilled in this splat-stick extravaganza then be sure to check out The Night Of The Virgin as soon as you can.