I don’t know what led me to believe this, but it has to be said up front that I came to this expecting another horror movie – or, at least, something more horrific than what I got. This again has a very slow start – and a very slow middle … and a very slow end … – but it kept my focus for the most part because I really couldn’t fathom what, if anything, it was about. I found the first half hour or so wonderful, the sparse life of a tiny village going on around a little hall where most of its population, including our young heroines, are gathered seeing James Whale’s Frankenstein for the first time. We see the Spanish introduction to the movie, and then we’re cut away to the beehives of the title, seemingly disjointed.

There’s an odd pace to the editing throughout here, scenes start and finish before we’re able to fully comprehend their relevance and this would be a bad thing if it weren’t for the fact that, I admit, it put me far from ease. We see the children here kind of testing their boundaries and then, from the germ of cinematic fantasy exacerbated by her elder sister’s suggestion, one of the youngest of those children taking the line between that fantasy and reality just a tad too far. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth certainly owes a lot to this movie – this is almost like that movie with the visual effects taken out, in fact.

If it weren’t for the adorable and constant presence of the two young girls here (the youngest, Ana, would’ve made the perfect Alice in Wonderland IMHO), I admit I would’ve found this too dull and arduous a viewing. Even still it’s a movie it’ll take me a long time to watch again. But I know that if and when I do, it will probably grow on me immeasurably. What struck me most about it is how I could never have guessed when it was made if asked – I didn’t check the year before putting it on, only assuming that it was old, but the photography is so clean and the costumes etc so timeless, I really wouldn’t have known if it was made much more recently. At first look it’s at least a better Frankenstein “spinoff” than Gods and Monsters, for example, and I can only give it the benefit of the doubt. I hope I can find the time to come back to this some day.

Tags: childhood, cuties, fantasy, haunted, Spanish

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