‘Thesis’: Alejandro Amenábar’s violent, voyeuristic and academic Spanish horror debut

Posted On July 14, 2024July 14, 2024

While Italy is often the Mediterranean country we think of first when it comes to the horror genre, considering the works of Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, one ought not to ignore the horror movies that have come out of Spain, notably Alejandro Amenábar’s feature debut, 1996’s horror-thriller Thesis, a vitally important work of the country for several reasons.

A gripping film of psychological proportions, Thesis examines the cross-section of academics and the media by focusing on Angela, a young university student writing her thesis on cinematic violence and the family. When Angela’s lecturer dies after they find and watch a violent snuff film in the university’s audiovisual archives, she soon becomes involved in a conspiracy surrounding a missing student.

The narrative of Thesis alone is one of striking intensity, but the themes of Amenábar’s work bring it to its overall brilliance. For starters, Thesis serves as a consideration of the Spanish film industry of the 1990s, an era of cinematic resurgence in the country, particularly from the likes of Pedro Almodovar and Bigas Luna, when such directors had begun to explore more controversial themes in their movies, differing vastly from the censored outlook on cinema of the previous decades.

However, Thesis also posits that there was still an air of censorship in Spanish cinema in the 1990s, an idea that arrives symbolically through the hidden and secretive qualities of the snuff film at its narrative centre. While there was indeed a newfound freedom in 1990s Spanish cinema, there were expectations to adhere to mainstream tastes, something that Thesis didn’t intend to conform to.

In addition, Amenábar comments on Hollywood’s influence on global cinema, with many European directors using the accepted conventions of American film in their works. Amenábar’s critique initially adheres to this. In Thesis, we find a slow build-up and a shifting investigation before the showdown with the malice behind the snuff film, reflecting an American influence.

However, Amenábar essentially uses these techniques to parody the over-the-top sensationalism of Hollywood horror movies and, from the narrative that he provides, his overall subversion of them. By letting the story unfold in a realistic academic setting, Amenábar douses Thesis in not only an intellectual and severe atmosphere but one that seems opposed to the exaggeration of Hollywood, one that consults psychology and fear over stylised shock.

Finally, Amenábar looks into the allure of the horror genre and the human interest in violence and death in cinema. Angela’s initial interest in audio-visual violence might begin through an academic pursuit, but as the film progresses, her thesis grows into something more dangerous and obsessive, which mirrors the most fanatical horror fans’ demands for more and more shocking pieces of cinema.

One simply becomes desensitised to violence and Amenábar provides a critique of this sociological facet, perhaps with the finger pointed at the media. As the characters gaze upon the horrors of the snuff films, their reactions vary from disgust to complete indifference, and as concern and even moral panic grew in the 1990s about graphic violence on screen, Amenábar was casting his own aspersions.

Amenábar’s Thesis is a masterwork of 1990s Spanish horror that criticises the previous eras of Spain’s film industry, Hollywood’s overarching influence on European filmmakers, and how violence and horror can become voyeuristic enterprises. The Chilean-Spanish director’s debut set him on the way to success and is vital to Spanish horror history.

Related Topics