This crime thriller is an enjoyable murder mystery with red herrings thrown at us, and
perhaps a Spanish Giallo bordering to the horror film. Just what makes this film so good?
I don't know, but there's that hard to define pulse to it, the actors, the story, the pace
and it just clicks. It's delightfully unpretentious and unsentimental and has becomed a
beloved cult classic in Spain.
Eduardo Noriega can be seen here in his first feature film. Tesis plays like a Brian De
Palma film anno Blow Out and Dressed to Kill but without the Palma Set-Pieces due to
Amenabár's very limited budget. Yes, i love the old De Palma and I liked Tesis very much
and sat with a big grin on my face after watching this film.
I especially liked Fele Martinez as Chema, the likeable misfit, but Eduardo Noriega and
Ana Torrent were great too. (Fele won a Goya Award for Best New Actor and Ana was
nominated a Goya for Best Actress)

The Story:

The university student Angela (Ana Torrent) writes a thesis about audio-visual violence
and it's influence on people, and she talks her professor into borrowing her a banned film
with forbidden images from the schools archives.
But the old professor dies when watching the film and she manages to steal the VHS
video cassette. She watches it with another misfit, the student Chema (Fele Martinez) a
collector of violent movies and the film is a Snuff movie where a young girl is killed.
Chema recognizes the girl as a student that went missing 2 years ago and could her killer
also be a student? Misfit? Yes, beautiful Angela seems to be a sick puppy herself as
she's a bit too eager to watch these images.
The Dynamic Duo of Angela and Chema starts sleuthing without telling anything to the
police about their findings, that sounds like a Spanish giallo to me. Who's the Killer?
Red herrings are thrown at us en masse when this film twists away

Film presented in 1.85:1 widescreen ratio and with Spanish audio 5.1 or 2.0 and english
subtitles, region all. Extras in spanish and with NO english subtitles::
Audio commentary byAlejandro Amenabár
Deleted Scenes
Short Film: Himenopteros (1992)
Storyboards, Trailer, Galeria
Así se Hizo (Behind the Scenes, 20 minutes)

.....................................................................................
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Above: US Tanelorn Films 2014 Blu-ray edition

Short 2014 digression about Spanish film below:

Yes, yes, finally a genre film from Spain that i like. I am normally bored with
the Netflix type of crime- and horror movies from Spain as they almost always
have these annoying Hollywoodian mainstream sensibilities to them and i
often dislike films that most other seem to love, as i.a. The Orphanage/El
Orfanato from 2007 and Los ojos de Julia/The Eyes of Julia 2010, both with
Belén Rueda in them (even though their suckiness are no fault of hers).
OK, Mientras duermes (Sleep Tight from 2011) with Luis Toser was pretty
good admittedly, but the nihilistic ending to that one was annoyed me as i
wanted the slime Toser being caught. Everything led up to him being an
untouchable and getting away with his crimes, so, a non surprise there too.
Yes, there were disgusting sentimental endings to all these 3 films, also.

Another genre film from Spain i did like was The Body (2012, El Cuerpo) by
Oriol Paulo. A great revenge crime-thriller about a man who may or may not
have killed his rich older wife and with a body missing.
A very clever script, great acting and in this film Belén Rueda rocked as a
powerful and bitchy rich woman.

Then we have the early films of Catalonian director Nacho Cerdá, the shorts
Aftermath and Genesis (1994, 1998) and also the interesting mess The
Abandoned from 2006, i like him and do hope he will get to make more feature
film, besides the documentaries he has made the last decade.

Also, i do like a Spanish director who makes non-indie films but still with a
indie-ish slant them -
Alejandro Amenábar, who made his feature film debut in 1996 with this film
Tesis and won a bundle of Goya awards for it. The film was a huge Hit and
everyone liked it.

I also loved his sci-fi thriller Abre los Ojos from 1997 (read more about this
superior film on my Cult & Classics Page 1). His blockbuster Los Otros / The
Others from 2001 was OK but not great ( i've also seen the Bollywood version
with Nepalese star Manisha Koirala and it was OK).

I was blown away watching Amenábar's 2009 historical drama Agora about
the 400 AD Alexandrian woman philosopher, astronomer etc Hypatia. She
was murdered by religious fanatics in A.D. 415.
But no-one saw it and it flopped big. This Spanish director, Post Tesis, seems
to be an etablished mainstream filmmaker with the hailed drama Mar adentro
from 2004 with Javier Bardem as his biggest success.

I finally managed to see Agora and it was hard to get hold of, I think I bought
the last copy from Amazon. Agora is a MASTERPIECE, WOW! It looked
beyond great and Amenábar created Alexandria 400 AD with no costs or work
avoided. Agora is very powerful in depicting the intolerance and ignorance of
religion when a christian mob brutally murdered the foremost scientist of it's
time, the mathematician, astronomer and philosopher Hypatia, beautifully
performed by the great Rachel Weisz

The Tanelorn 2011/2014 Blu-ray edition specs

widescreen 1.85:1, spanish audio 2.0 stereo with english subtitles
Extras: Introduction by director Alejandro Amenábar, Making of Featurette (23
min, in spanish with subs), Deleted scenes (7 min), Storyboards and a
Documentary from 2014 "Touching Death" (42 min) with Amenábar in english.