Sometime in the 1970's there was a political uprising in Argentina. A group known as Triple A came across 25 crates of TNT after a raid. When the political status changed, the headquarters of Triple A was raided, but the cases of TNT was never found. Now in present day we meet Román (Facundo Espinosa) and his friend Ali (Marina Glezer). Román can't find his girlfriend. She has left him for a guy that she has met on the internet. Thanks to his friend Ali, who has been talking to the same guy, they have traced the emails back to this guy's house. As they sit there, Román gets an email from his girlfriend basically telling him to forget about her. The email sent is the same IP address as the guy she went to meet up with, so Ali believes she is in the same house. Ali gets the invite to go into the house, so she does. After a long time, Román starts to get worried and sees an old man trying to cross the street. He decides to help the guy, who then goes into the house that Ali went into. Now that he really worried, he finds a way into the house and finds Ali has been tied up and along with some other woman. This other woman is being asked by the old guy if she knows what the meaning is of something that has been written down on a chalk board. After she stalls for a long time, the old man tells his partner to lower the woman, and when she hits her head on a board, her head explodes. What is going on in this house?
Sadly that question is never answered. Unlike the other movies I had been watching this weekend, Cold Sweat, Sudor frío is the original title, puts you right into the mix of things early in the movie. The two old men that are doing things to women were apparently part of the group that was called Triple A. It was never said, as far as I know, but Ali comes to believe that. The cases of TNT that was never found shows up in the house. We see a couple of flash backs where the two guys, who are younger now of course, are buying the house and getting ready for a project. The project is never really explained though. What we do know is that this pair of old men manage to lure women to their home using some blond guy. The guy barely moves, but is alive, so I don't see how women would not think something is wrong. Once there, the old men put nitroglycerin on the women that they got from the TNT. Since this is unstable stuff, they can't move around to well so that makes escape something they can only wish for. Then they are asked about what is on the board. Ali believes it says "kiss me if you can read this", which pleases the old guy. Don't know if that is what it actually says though. He then goes on a rant about how women today only use on average of 200 words, when there is over 150,000 Spanish words out there. So what is the film trying to say? That these guys are psycho Spanish teachers?
Things only get worse when Ali goes to escape, but instead of doing so, explores the house. It amazed me that they could get around the house so well without ever being noticed. Once the girlfriend is found, alive at that, she is supposed to be covered in nitroglycerin. I guess that is where they get the title from because it looks like sweat in a way. Since her backside is supposed to be dry, she crawls around on her back a lot, but very slowly. There are all kinds of moments where people have to move very slowly. When an explosion does happen, it happens in slow motion. It would seem that writer/director Adrián García Bogliano is a fan of moving slowly. I get that this was supposed to add some tension. You don't want these people to explode or get burned by acid from the bottles that are placed on them sometimes, but it happens so often that it just becomes very boring after a while.
The effects were okay. It wasn't that they were badly done, just that there wasn't much of anything for effects. For having a few explosions, which sometimes includes people, we never really get to see much of anything. There was a bloody stump where the head used to be, but that was about it. The acting was also okay. There wasn't anyone that stood out, but I think that just had to do with the odd plot more than anything else. I was trying to figure out what the hell this movie was about instead of paying close attention to the acting. The old guys were fun at times because of their bickering back and forth, but that was about it.
Just to make Cold Sweat all the more odd, there are women being held in various stages of nakedness down in the basement. I have no idea why they were being kept. They weren't zombies of course, but they sure acted like them. Sometimes the sub titles would disappear before I had the chance to read the whole thing, so I don't know if I might have missed something, or if the movie itself was just poorly explained. Either way, I don't feel I was the only person that didn't care for Cold Sweat. I know the guy that was sitting in front of me was getting frustrated because no one would ever go on the attack against the old guys. The only part I did like was when Ali makes it out of the house, at long long last, and runs into the neighbors house asking to call the police. As soon as she says this we see that the neighbors were just getting ready to do some drugs. Unless you are a big fan of horror movies from Argentina for some reason, then I think it is safe to say that this one can be passed on.
2 out of 5 Be sure to move like the mighty turtle!
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