As an ardent movie lover, I believe that for every popular Hollywood or English-language movie, there is an equally, if not lesser-known, foreign-language counterpart — like El Elegido (1985), which preceded movies like The Game (1997) or The Truman Show (1998). A good 21st century example of this phenomenon would be 2017’s Killing God, also known by its original title Matar A Dios. This movie dazzled the Spanish population with its blend of horror, comedy, and supernatural elements before the more popular Ready or Not became a hit among audiences in 2019.
A Very Spanish Apocalypse
Both movies have characters fighting to stay alive in supernatural, homicidal situations, ending with the deaths of most, if not every, on-screen character. What sets Killing God apart is how it incorporates typical Spanish idiosyncrasies in place of the regular storytelling one might expect from Hollywood.
For example, instead of a traditional break-in from one of the two main entrances, our four main characters realize that they have company when they hear a flushing sound from a toilet in their old mansion. From it, a little person, a strangely dressed man, steps out, introduces himself as God, and informs his unwilling hosts that the human population will die the following morning, save for two people. He tasks them with choosing which two people will be saved.
The beauty of Killing God is the manner in which the audience is gently eased into the story — largely a chamber piece set almost entirely in an old mansion on a rainy night around New Year’s Eve. Writer-directors Caye Casas and Albert Pinto utilize a modest budget by prioritizing the characters, their relationships, and personal struggles over jump scares and bloody kills.
In God…We Trust?
The supernatural elements in this movie are among the freshest I have seen. Here we have a character, a small man, rough looking, vaguely threatening. A man possessing some form of superpowers who goes around telling people he is ‘God’ and supplying them with proof. In doing so, he challenges their preconceived ideas of what a supreme being would look like and what it means to experience one. Comedy also plays an important role in the movie. The characters partake in mundane, almost absurd conversations about pancakes, sleeping pills, wine, and infidelity while faced with the possibility of their deaths.
In the end, the use of exposition remains the highlight of this movie. The writers work to intrigue the audience by giving as little information as possible at a time about what is going on. Throughout the runtime, I wasn’t clear on whether the unwanted guest was being truthful about his warnings of an early morning apocalypse, which only made me even more invested in the story. The general conceit of the movie isn’t fully revealed until the last sequence. When it is, it feels earned, like a good night’s rest after a day spent at work.
Killing God (
Matar A Dios) is available to stream or rent on
Prime Video.
Killing God // An Iberian Chamber Piece
A Very Spanish Apocalypse
Both movies have characters fighting to stay alive in supernatural, homicidal situations, ending with the deaths of most, if not every, on-screen character. What sets Killing God apart is how it incorporates typical Spanish idiosyncrasies in place of the regular storytelling one might expect from Hollywood.
For example, instead of a traditional break-in from one of the two main entrances, our four main characters realize that they have company when they hear a flushing sound from a toilet in their old mansion. From it, a little person, a strangely dressed man, steps out, introduces himself as God, and informs his unwilling hosts that the human population will die the following morning, save for two people. He tasks them with choosing which two people will be saved.
In God…We Trust?
Chidinma Okezie
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