mdnobles19 While doing a thesis about violence, Ángela finds a snuff video where a girl is tortured until death. Soon she discovers that the girl was a former student in her faculty...I've been wanting to watch this film for a couple of years now, but was hard to tract it down until it was finally available to rent on Netflix. To my disappointment, I should have not even bothered. The film has an intriguing theory about our society's attraction for the morbid, but it just didn't have that powerful impact it needed for it to be effective. Thesis was way too slow and took too long to get to the action. It has some suspenseful and atmospheric scenes that play off our fears of the dark and the unknown, but few and far between. For having a subject matter like this, the film was just not terrifying enough, but definitely a lot more intelligent than most thrillers that get released to theaters these days.The acting was very subtle and focused and Ana Torrent makes for an engaging lead as Angela, a student who stumbles upon a Snuff film while doing a thesis about violence. She figures out that the victim in the video was also a student in her faculty that went missing. Angela does some of her own investigation while the killer or killers is on her tail. The film was filled with an uneasy feeling that crawls under your skin, but never leads to anywhere haunting to make you lose sleep over. The characters where also not that interesting other than the lead actress and made some pretty weak decisions, which made me yell at the screen. Nothing that amazing here, just decent.Director, Alejandro Amenábar best known from the modern horror classic The Others. He definitely likes to inject his pictures with atmosphere, suspense, character, and story and fear the old fashioned way than relying on CGI and bloodshed. For this being his first feature, it's not half bad and pretty gripping, but has pacing issues. I can tell though that he is in his element here and was in his element in The Others, so I hope that we get another thriller or horror movie in the future from him, as he seems to be the most skillful in those genres.Overall, It's not a must see and not for all tastes, but for its time it's kind of a one of a kind thriller and I would of probably appreciated it more if I watched it when it came out in 1996. Watching it now though, some of it just came off as a made for TV. movie and clocking in at 125 minutes, the film took too long to get going. Worth a look if you have nothing better to watch and if you were a fan of 8MM, but don't expect a fast paced thrill ride. 6 out of 10

bean-d I have only one thing to say about the movie "Thesis" (1996): yuck! Directed by the same man who did "Open Your Eyes" (1997), "Thesis" deals with a female college student studying violence in film. She makes friends with a misfit who has a video collection of porn and ultra-violence. By a bizarre chance, she encounters a snuff film. She and the misfit realize that the victim is a girl from campus who disappeared two years ago. They begin to theorize that someone on campus is doing the killings. But who? And now, it seems, the killer(s) are after her . . .While I must admit the film scared me, the subject matter was just too gross. Movies like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III" (which I also watched today) I find at best humorous, at worst boring. But I always know that they're fakes: from the moment they're first conceived by some drunken screenwriter looking for his big break, they're fakes. And even though, of course, "Thesis" is fake, the idea behind it is that REAL people would REALLY torture and kill on screen for the enjoyment of other REAL people. So, again: yuck!

runamokprods An entertaining, thought provoking and at times truly scary first film. It reminds me of early DePalma, both in it's strengths and weaknesses. Amenabar uses violence and fear as means to explore deeper themes and psychology - in this case the way we're all drawn to violent images, even if we claim not to be. But these ideas stay pretty heady, and at times teeter on preachy or obvious. The film is full of wonderfully clever visual and sound techniques, but occasionally you become so aware of the flash and 'hey, what a cool way to film a scene' that it takes you out of the movie. Also for me, the score is a little too obvious a Bernard Herrman homage. It also goes on a little long. The first 75 minutes or so seemed downright brilliant, but when you drag a thriller out, often the creakiness of the plot shows through. In the end there are a few twists too many for credibility, and it crosses into, 'c'mon, she would have gone to the cops by now' territory for the last half hour. Yet, even once it starts to feel a bit silly, it's never dull, and the tension stays high. For all its flaws, it scared me and it got me to think, and that's always worth applauding.

ma-cortes This suspenseful movie concerns about Angela(Ana Torrent), she's an university student at a journalism university in Madrid. She comes across a snuff movie that shows a girl being tortured and killed. She befriends Chema(Fele Martinez), a young completely obsessed with violent films. They find out that the girl was an university at their school and her former fiancé named Bosco(Eduardo Noriega) holds a camera similar to the snuff's shooting. They early discover the killing was actually filmed on campus.The motion picture displays genuine chills, suspense, mystery and dark atmosphere with a shocker finale . Packs excellent creation of tension, thriller, terror , emotions and brief gore. It's an exciting, bizarre film; skillfully proceeded by Alejandro Amenabar and turns out to one of the most unusual Spaniard horror movie ever made and certainly one of the most unsettling. Plenty of shocks, the eerie images deliver the exciting united a creepy score by Amenabar, also screenwriter, along with Mateo Gil, of the thrilling plot. Intelligent edition, special use of murky sets and slick utilization of shock images make this one, a magnificent terror film. Gloomy and sombre cinematography by Hans Burman which heightens the suspense. The picture is well directed by Amenabar in his first movie. After he achieved various hits, such as : 'Open your ears, The others and Mar adentro' . Rating : Better than average.