★★★★ Damián Szifrón’s US debut shows what we already knew from his first film “The Bottom of the Sea”: he knows classical language and knows how to get the most out of it. But this story does not have the humorous edging that can be seen in all his productions from “Los Simuladores” onwards: something dark appears from its title, hatred for people. Everything centers on the relationship of a young FBI detective and her mentor in the hunt for a bloody serial killer who opts for attacks of absolute cruelty. What is remarkable is how this story is confused with a nocturnal climate (Szifrón is one of the few filmmakers “from here” who understands the construction of a certain climate) that brings the story closer to a nightmare. Perhaps there is not much originality in the plan, but everything is in the image and in dialogues of enormous precision. There is something in the crudeness of certain sequences that recall the best cinema of the seventies.
