Do You Really Want the Answer?

Film: Who Can Kill a Child? (¿Quién puerde matar a un niño?)
Format: Blu-ray from Cortland Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

It’s good to have friends. As I make my way through the They Shoot Zombies list, the percentage of films that I can’t find gets a little bit higher with each film I watch. Up to today, Who Can Kill a Child? (or ¿Quién puerde matar a un niño? in the original Spanish) was the only movie I hadn’t seen in the top-200, and I couldn’t find it. I have a friend who is also a horror nerd and who happens to be a librarian...so she bought a copy for the library and gave it to me to watch even before it was checked in. Like I said, it’s good to have friends.

We had a running joke, calling this “the film we can’t name” until it showed up—it's not the kind of title you want to say out loud around children...or parents...or people. In the defense of the movie, this isn’t a film specifically about child murderers and the question it is asking is not seeking an answer in terms of actually naming people. There is a title drop in the film, and when it happens, the question is essentially a rhetorical one—what kind of person could do this?

That's an Unusual Doorbell Noise

Film: The House that Screamed (La Residencia)
Format: Streaming video from AMC on Fire!

It’s not a shock that there would be some similarities between Italian horror and Spanish horror. The House that Screamed (originally La Residencia) is a film that makes that connection very clear. The film takes place at a girls’ boarding school in France where a series of grisly murders are going to take place. In a sense, this feels like a Spanish Suspiria in large part. It’s a lot more sexually charged, though, with elements of women in prison movies, young girls showering (while clothed, which is oddly more sexual), and some lesbian overtones. I wasn’t sure what to think going into this one, but the reality of the film is very different from what I expected.

Before I talk about this, I need to talk for a moment about where to find the film. It’s currently available on Tubi TV, but the transfer is terrible. It’s grainy and hard to watch, and more importantly, there is a noticeable and terrible hiss. It’s barely watchable. I got about 30 minutes in before I looked for a better version of it, which is available.