A basement-bound thriller begins with a grisly jolt of invention before succumbing to diminishing returns

As Carlos Goitia’s low-budget horror movie opens, we begin in medias res as a woman (Paula Brasca) wakes up in a standard murder basement: muted decor, very little natural light, a sturdy workbench with an impressive array of rusty tools, various masks made of skin. She immediately realises she is lying in a pile of corpses – all mutilated women. She herself is badly injured. Not a happy awakening for the character, but it’s not a bad jumping-off point for a horror movie.

In short order, the killer (Damian Castillo) heaves into view. Naturally, he’s an absolutely massive man in a Texas Chain Saw Massacre-type get-up – and our heroine very sensibly plays dead. This is a creepy and interesting conceit – how long is she going to be able to keep up the pretence? What happens once he rumbles the ruse? Unfortunately, Goitia can’t quite assemble enough material to keep the “what if you had to pretend to be dead?” idea in play for a whole feature film, and proceedings start to feel thin and stretched at a point where there is still plenty of movie left to play out.