El bar (Álex de la Iglesia, 2017)

So, the murder mystery template of a suitably assorted bunch of strangers brought together in a confined environment has been tried and tested to serve horror and sci-fi too, by simultaneously giving us some kind of cross-section of society and therefore also people who don't know or trust each other, and this is what The Bar goes with in brisk style, with people trapped inside a bar near the centre of Madrid after a few people going outside its doors are abruptly shot by someone unseen. This could go in several different directions, but when you know that the director has hardly diverged from a preoccupation with horror ever since his 1993 debut, Acción mutante, it's hardly a surprise when he starts knocking over his pawns with glee and it turns properly schlocky. The feeding on current paranoias about terrorists, disease epidemics and - a particularly Spanish one, this - distrust of the government add some topical flavour, but like its characters it ends up wallowing in the sewer before too long.

5/10