Rating: C+
Dir: Pedro L. Barbero and Vicente J. Martín
Star: Silke, Fele Martínez, Jorge Sanz, Rebeca Cobos
a.k.a. Tuno negro
This feels influenced by Scream in a number of ways, but has enough of its own flavour to stand on its own. In particular, the title really translates as “black minstrel”, though I certainly get why it wasn’t released under that name elsewhere. But it is apparently a thing in Hispanic culture. Per Wikipedia, “a tuna is a group of university students in traditional university dress who play traditional instruments and sing serenades.” A senior member is called a “tuno“. Here, someone dressed in such anachronistic garb is touring educational establishments, knocking off the worst performing students in highly stabby ways, and broadcasting the murders on the Internet.
Or, at least, what passed for the Internet back in the day. From a contemporary viewpoint, it makes for an amusing time capsule of chat rooms, dial tones and waiting forever for an image to show up. Real-time video? Forget about it. This delay is actually used to good affect during one scene, where the killer is stalking one victim, the slutty Michelle (Cobos), through the streets of Salamanca. That city is home to the oldest university in Spain, and the fourth-oldest in the world. There is consequently a strong sense of history here, which works for the film. The film focuses on tuno Eduardo (Sanz), new transfer student Alex (Silke), and the cop in charge of finding the killer, Victor (Martinez).
The Scream influence is obvious from the start. The first victim is played by Maribel Verdú, probably the most well-known actress in the cast at the time, clearly in the Drew Barrymore role. Though these corpses in waiting are considerably more horny than their American counterparts, shagging in bathroom stalls and even, in Michelle’s case, on the altar in the student chapel. In addition, Alex and Victor engage in activities which I would have thought were inappropriate between a detective and a material witness. But, hey, maybe Spanish police procedures are more lax in the area. They could use some firearms training too. For later on, one cop basically goes berserk and starts to gun down anyone wearing a tuno costume. This is a lot of innocent victims.
It is quite formulaic in nature, with the expected slew of red herrings which are trotted out to try and confuse the viewer. Let the record show, they did not fool Chris. She was able to spot the true killer by the halfway point. There’s also some ludicrous use of photo enhancement software, which seems to have strayed in from Blade Runner. All told though, it was adequately gory, with characters I found considerably less irritating than their Scream counterparts. It probably is not something I would have much interest in watching again, knowing from the beginning who is the killer. But it had enough of a novel setting to hold my interest, and I didn’t feel it had wasted my time.