10 Spanish Horror Movies You Must See Before You Die

In the wrong hands a movie with the premise of Tesis could have turned into a tasteless and unwatchable horror film. Lucky for us, Thesis was the feature film debut of Alejandro Amenábar who went on to make Open Your Eyes, The Others and won an Oscar for The Sea Inside. Needless to say, Tesis packs a wallop.

The film follows Angela. She is planning on writing her university thesis on violence in the visual arts. While researching she stumbles upon an actual snuff film setting off a chain of events that threatens her life. Amenábar was a film student at the time he made Tesis, so the movie is made by a film student, about film students finding a forbidden film. The meta nature of the film allows Amenábar to freely criticize the way horror films are made and the way audiences respond to them.

From very early in the film when Angela becomes transfixed on seeing the body of a person who committed suicide to the end of the film when an announcer on television declares they will be showing footage from a snuff film on the air, Amenábar has a clear message he wants to get across.

As one film critic put it, Tesis has a Thesis. It holds a mirror up to the audience, especially horror fans. Amenábar acknowledges our innate attraction to violence, but he also asks, where should we draw the line between entertainment and snuff.