In addition to the usual reviews and comments you would find on a horror movie blog, this is also a document of the wonderfully vast horror movie section of the video store I worked at in my youth.

Sunday, October 16, 2022

L is for The Last Matinee (2020)


When I was at Fantasia this summer, this movie was a blind buy at one of the pop-up Blu-ray vendors. It has sat in “the pile” until I realized it was alphabetically fortuitous to watch it now.


Unsuspecting moviegoers at a cinema in Montevideo are stalked by a sadistic killer.

This is a well made movie. It has good composition, a good location, a good lead actress (Luciana Grasso), good kills and a good score. All the side stories are amusing, the kid who sneaks in, the loud teenagers, the first date couple... However, there just seems to be something missing for it to add up to the sum of its parts.

Perhaps The Last Matinee is just trying too hard to stand alongside its influences. It doesn't take long to see that director Maximiliano Contenti is a huge giallo fan, as well as Bigas Luna's 1987 flick Anguish. You take Zelda Rubinstein out of that movie and The Last Matinee is basically a remake. There's even an Anguish poster in the box office. 

Luciana Grasso as Ana in The Last Matinee

Maybe it's the little distractions that add up - the Uruguayan Jonah Hill, the fact the movie is called The Last Matinee, but it's clearly night out or maybe just that I kept remembering that little kid was sitting in his own piss for half the movie.

At first I thought the film playing in the theatre while all this was going on - Frankenstein: Day of the Beast - was shot alongside this movie. That would have been impressive, but when I looked it up I found it was a ten-year-old movie made by Ricardo Islas who plays the TLM's killer. Less impressive, but it is cool that they include the full movie on the disc as a special feature.


The Last Matinee was serviceable and slick, like most horrors are these days. Easily digestible, but not filling.

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