I’m always amused when I discover anew that phoning-it-in is not unique to my culture. Look! Look! These non-American jackoffs made a film that -at best- is a retread — a tiresome tale of inheriting a haunted house. No way, right? Aren’t other cultures above this? Apparently not. It’s very refreshing.
Más negro que la noche, itself, however, is not refreshing. Greta (Zuria Vega) is a hot twentysomething. She inherits a house. The house is large, gothic and remote. It contains a housekeeper so wraithlike she could double as a Halloween costume. And a ghost. And an evil cat. I think technically the cat is the inheritor of the estate, but it’s hard to tell. The instructions say the house is Greta’s so long as she takes care of the cat. Wouldn’t worry; the cat kinda takes care of itself.
Greta invites girlfriends; share the wealth, eh? One of the girls moves in with a ferret. Well, this isn’t gonna take long. And it doesn’t. The ferret is dead by midnight. Now, seriously, isn’t it a tad presumptuous to move into somebody’s house with a ferret? I mean, even a friend’s house? C’mon. You’re bringing the ferret? Not a dog or cat or even a gerbil, but a ferret? María (Adriana Louvier) takes her revenge out on the cat the next day. L
ook, how do you imagine getting away with this?
“Hey, something happened to the cat!”
“Hmmm, that’s strange. Didn’t you have a beef with the cat when you accused it of killing your ferret … yesterday?”
“No, that wasn’t me. Clearly, it was Pilar’s ferret.”
This kinda film was reasonable in a different era in black and white and starring Bette Davis or Joan Crawford or something. Nice to know that stupid and hot is relatively universal, but these films only work when the scares and skin justify the lack of invention or when stupidity is instantly rewarded with death. I was bored pretty much the entire film. And it takes over 90 minutes of screentime for a human to die. At least I can be secure knowing it took less time for the box office death.
♪María introduced her ferret to feline
This summit wasn’t exactly what you‘d call benign
María wanted revenge and took it out on kitty
Teaching the cat to dog paddle was terribly far from pretty
But the cat came back the very next day,
Back in Satan’s service and itchin’ for some prey
The cat came back, it didn’t want to roam
Not sure whom to blame, after all, it owns the home♫
Rated R, 103 Minutes
D: Henry Bedwell
W: Henry Bedwell
Genre: The pain of inheritance
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Evil cats
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Hot twentysomethings who inherit mansions
♪ Parody inspired by “The Cat Came Back”
