PUFA 2026 – Day 7 — A Night of Terror and Madness (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Trainwreck)

🎬 16:15 – The Opening Salvo: Horror and Love

Venue: FUNDOS | Rating: 6.8 💛

The festival kicked off with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the skull, courtesy of Joaquín Oristrell, a director who seems to have mistaken horror for a lunchtime thriller from Spain’s Antena 3. Horror and Love is the kind of film that meets the bare minimum to avoid being booted from the festival: a couple of well-placed jump scares (the kind that work just as well in a theater as they do in a YouTube video titled "10 Most Terrifying TikTok Moments"), cinematography that doesn’t assault the retinas (thank you, DP, for not burning our eyes with an Instagram filter from 2016), and a cast that, while not exactly dazzling, at least doesn’t seem actively embarrassed to be there.

The plot—if you can call it that—follows a couple who decide to spend a romantic weekend in a cabin in the woods. Yes, you read that right: a cabin in the woods. The most worn-out cliché in the genre since the first screenwriter in history scribbled "dark forest = danger" on a bar napkin. But Oristrell, in a stroke of brilliance, decides the real horror isn’t lurking in the trees—it’s the protagonist’s traumatic past, which, shockingly, involves an abusive ex-boyfriend. Because nothing screams "fresh terror" like recycling The Shining with a dash of Take My Eyes.

The problem isn’t that the film is predictable (it is, to the point where you could guess the ending in the first five minutes), but that its greatest strength—its atmosphere—collapses like a house of cards the second the characters open their mouths. The dialogue is so forced it sounds like it was lifted from a beginner’s creative writing workshop, where the teacher’s advice was: "If you don’t know what to say, just throw in a flashback or a monologue about love and fear." And so, between unnecessary flashbacks and slow-motion intense stares, the film drags itself to its climax, which, of course, is as anticlimactic as a joke told by a Roomba.

That said, Oristrell does know how to stage a tense sequence. There’s a moment where the protagonist walks down a dark hallway while the camera slowly zooms in on her sweaty, unhinged face. It’s the kind of shot that works so well you forget that, five minutes earlier, the same actress was reciting a poem about the moon like a teenager in a talent show. But alas, the magic doesn’t last. The second the villain (because of course there’s a villain) shows up, the film devolves into a low-budget slasher where the killer seems more interested in philosophizing about love than actually, you know, killing people.

In short, Horror and Love is like a roadside diner’s daily special: you won’t starve, but you won’t remember what you ate the next day either. It serves its purpose as a "warm-up act," but don’t expect it to leave you with "the perfect body and the festival-ready mindset" like a shot of pure adrenaline. Instead, it’ll leave you feeling like you just watched an extended episode of Cuéntame cómo pasó—but with more fake blood and less nostalgia.

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🟠 18:00 – Diving Into Madness: Quantum Rave

Venue: FUNDOS | Rating: 5.2 🟠

If Horror and Love was the lukewarm appetizer, Quantum Rave is the cheap tequila shot you down to forget the appetizer left you indifferent. Directed by Paco Campano, a filmmaker who seems to have confused cinema with a rave in an abandoned Berlin warehouse, this film is the audiovisual equivalent of sticking your head in a washing machine during the spin cycle: you’re not entirely sure what’s happening, but you’re certain it’s not good for your mental health.

The premise is so unhinged it’s hard to summarize without sounding like a psychiatric patient describing their latest hallucination: a group of scientists (or maybe they’re artists, or maybe they’re deep web influencers) discovers a quantum formula that lets them enter an altered state of consciousness where time, space, and narrative coherence dissolve like sugar in water. What follows is 90 minutes of psychedelic imagery, bodies writhing in slow motion, neon lights ripped from a The Weeknd music video, and a soundtrack that oscillates between industrial techno and elevator music in a luxury hotel.

Visually, the film is a spectacle. There’s no doubt Campano knows how to handle a camera and play with light and color to create hypnotic images. Entire sequences look like Zdzisław Beksiński paintings brought to life by a team of caffeine-fueled graphic designers. The problem? Beyond the aesthetics, there’s nothing holding the film together. There’s no plot (or if there is, it’s buried under so many layers of cheap symbolism that not even the sharpest viewer could excavate it), no characters (just vague archetypes ranging from "the mad scientist" to "the girl who dances like she’s possessed by the rave demon"), and no coherence (a scene can jump from a philosophical dialogue about the nature of the universe to a close-up of a blood-tear-streaked eye without warning).

This is the kind of film that only makes sense in the context of a festival like this, where the audience is willing to swallow anything as long as it feels underground. Outside that bubble, Quantum Rave is like an abstract painting hung in a public restroom: some might find it profound, but most will just see a meaningless smear.

That said, the 5.2 audience rating is, if anything, generous. The film scrapes by with a passing grade because, at the very least, it doesn’t bore you. It confuses you, irritates you, gives you a headache—but it doesn’t bore you. And in the world of festival cinema, that’s something.

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🍿 22:00 – Midnight Marathon at Broadway Cinemas (Screen 5): Where Dreams Become Nightmares (And Vice Versa)

The moment of truth arrived. After a strategic break (and a couple of strong coffees to keep our eyelids from staging a mutiny), the festival treated us to a double feature that promised to "forge legends." Spoiler: only one film lived up to that hype. The other was a painful reminder that hell is paved with good intentions (and tight budgets).

#### The Letdown: Pinocchio Unstrung
Rating: 3.8 🔴

Oh, Pinocchio! The wooden puppet who’s inspired everything from animated masterpieces to adaptations so infamous they make Attack of the Killer Tomatoes look like The Godfather. And now, in a display of boundless originality, director Rhys Frake-Waterfield (a name that sounds more like a James Bond villain than a filmmaker) delivers Pinocchio Unstrung, a film seemingly conceived during a drunken night where someone yelled, "What if Pinocchio was a serial killer?!"

The premise, in theory, has potential. Imagine the classic Collodi character, but instead of wanting to be a real boy, his deepest desire is to become a fairy-tale slasher. Sounds fun, right? Wrong. Because what could’ve been a macabre satire or a black comedy instead becomes a cheap, poorly acted, and even more poorly executed slasher where Pinocchio (played by an actor who seems to be competing in a "Who can keep the straightest face while stabbing someone?" contest) goes on a killing spree with the grace of a Primark mannequin.

The biggest problem with Pinocchio Unstrung isn’t its lack of budget (though it’s painfully obvious), nor even its script, which reads like it was written by someone who’s only seen Saw once—and in passing. The real sin here is its total lack of personality. It’s not gory enough to satisfy extreme horror fans, not smart enough to work as satire, and not funny enough to be a comedy. It’s like a plate of food with no salt, no seasoning, and no love: you can force it down, but you won’t enjoy it.

And then there are the special effects. Oh, the special effects. In a film where the protagonist is a living wooden puppet, you’d expect the practical effects to at least be competent. But no. Here, Pinocchio looks less like a living being and more like a Halloween decoration, his movements so stiff you’ll wonder if the actor fell asleep mid-scene. The kills, meanwhile, are so uninspired they seem lifted from a "How to Make Fake Blood at Home" YouTube tutorial. There’s a moment where Pinocchio stabs a victim in the eye with scissors, and the blood looks like watered-down ketchup. It’s so pathetic it hurts.

But the worst part is the wasted opportunity. Because, again, the premise had potential. What if, instead of a generic slasher, we got a dark meditation on identity, humanity, and the dangers of wanting to be something you’re not? Or a black comedy about fairy tales and their sinister underbelly? In the hands of a more ambitious director (and a screenwriter who knows what a plot twist is), Pinocchio Unstrung could’ve been something. Instead, we’re left with a film that feels like it was made by someone who just wanted to see a wooden puppet stab people—and couldn’t be bothered to give it depth or style.

The 3.8 audience rating is, without a doubt, an act of charity. Or maybe it’s the result of viewers being so shell-shocked they couldn’t think straight afterward. Either way, Pinocchio Unstrung is definitive proof that not every "great idea scribbled on a bar napkin" deserves a spot on the big screen.

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#### The High: Frankie, Maniac Woman
Rating: 8.5 🟢

And then, as if the cinematic universe had decided to make amends for the previous ordeal, Frankie, Maniac Woman arrived—a film that didn’t just save the night but reminded us why we keep coming back to film festivals: to discover gems that leave us breathless, wide-eyed, and dizzy, like we’ve just stepped off a rollercoaster with no seatbelt.

Directed by Pierre Tsigaridis, a filmmaker who seems to have been born with a camera in one hand and a storyboard in the other, Frankie, Maniac Woman is a masterclass in psychotic gore—a whirlwind of stylized violence, surrealism, and pitch-black humor that leaves you exhausted, euphoric, and craving more. It’s as if David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino had a lovechild with Dario Argento, and that child grew up obsessed with 70s exploitation films and Cronenbergian body horror.

The plot—if you can call it that—follows Frankie (played by an actress whose name deserves to be carved in marble), a woman who wakes up in a psychiatric hospital with no memory of how she got there. What follows is a hallucinatory descent into her fractured mind, where reality and fantasy blur so seamlessly that you’ll repeatedly ask yourself: Is this a dream? A hallucination? Or just the result of one too many hits of LSD? There are scenes where Frankie interacts with distorted versions of herself, others where the hospital transforms into an endless maze of dark hallways, and moments where violence erupts so suddenly and brutally it leaves you gasping.

But what truly makes Frankie, Maniac Woman great isn’t its plot (which, at its core, is fairly simple), but its execution. Tsigaridis demonstrates absolute mastery of cinematic language: every shot is meticulously composed, every camera movement calculated to generate tension or unease, and every transition between scenes flows so smoothly it feels like magic. The cinematography, handled by a team that clearly knows what they’re doing, plays with chiaroscuro and saturated colors to create an atmosphere that oscillates between the dreamlike and the claustrophobic. The soundtrack—a mix of dark synthwave and industrial sounds—perfectly complements the film’s tone, adding an extra layer of madness to everything unfolding on screen.

And then there are the performances. Oh, the performances. Frankie is played by an actress (whose name, I repeat, deserves to be remembered) who conveys an incredible range of emotions with just a glance. There are moments when her face is a canvas of pain, confusion, and rage, and others where she seems to be enjoying the madness like it’s a party. The supporting cast doesn’t lag behind: from the sinister doctor who looks like he crawled out of a nightmare to the hospital’s patients, every character is so well-defined that, despite the film’s lack of a traditional narrative, you never feel lost.

But what truly elevates Frankie, Maniac Woman above other films in the genre is its ability to balance horror with humor. There are scenes so absurd and over-the-top that you can’t help but laugh—like when Frankie battles a giant version of herself armed with a kitchen knife, or when a patient starts reciting poetry while having his eyes gouged out. It’s the kind of dark humor that only works if the film takes itself seriously, and Tsigaridis nails it.

In short, Frankie, Maniac Woman is one of those films that leaves you feeling like you’ve lived through a singular experience. It’s not perfect (there are moments where the narrative gets a bit muddled, and some gags might be too extreme for certain viewers), but it’s so bold, so original, and so well-executed that those minor flaws are easily forgiven. It’s the kind of film that makes enduring long lines, sleepless nights, and unwatchable garbage like Pinocchio Unstrung worth it. It’s cinema in its purest form: chaotic, visceral, beautiful, and terrifying.

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The Best

• Frankie, Maniac Woman: A masterpiece of psychotic gore that leaves you feeling like you’ve survived a rollercoaster ride without a seatbelt. Tsigaridis proves that horror cinema can still be innovative, shocking, and deeply personal.

The audience’s resilience: No one can complain about the midnight marathon after sitting through Pinocchio Unstrung and still being upright. That’s* festival spirit.

The Worst

Pinocchio Unstrung: A film so devoid of charm, wit, or budget that it makes The Room look like Citizen Kane*. The only thing more wooden than its protagonist is its script.