Terrified (film)

Terrified (Aterrados) is a 2017 Argentine horror film written and directed by Demián Rugna, concerning a series of supernatural events in a neighbourhood of Buenos Aires.

Plot
At home in Buenos Aires, Clara hears strange voices coming from the plughole in her kitchen sink. The voices seem to be discussing a plan to kill her. Her husband Juan dismisses the sounds as misheard and coming from their noisy neighbor Walter. That night, awakened by thumping sounds, Juan is terrified to find Clara's dead body hovering in midair in their bathroom, repeatedly slamming against the wall as if thrown by an invisible force.

Walter, who lives next door, is also experiencing supernatural occurrences. Each night, as he tries to sleep, invisible forces shake and move his furniture, including his bed. When he uses a video camera to film the events, he sees a tall, naked figure emerging from beneath the bed, standing over him as he sleeps, and hiding in the wardrobe. When he seeks out the figure, it grabs him from behind.

Across the road, Alicia is grieving the death of her young son, hit by a bus outside Walter's house. Alicia's ex-boyfriend, police commissioner Funes calls Jano, a paranormal investigator and former coroner. Jano sees the dead boy sitting at the kitchen table, having apparently returned from the cemetery, leaving behind a trail of muddy footprints. After deliberating, the two eventually move the now inanimate corpse to an outside freezer.

Nearby, Jano meets Dr. Mora Albreck, another paranormal investigator. Mora has arrived to meet Walter, after viewing the video recordings he sent her. However, he has gone missing, leaving his house empty. Together with Rosentock, another supernatural researcher, Jano and Albreck visit Juan, now the main suspect in his wife's murder and held in a psychiatric facility. After being assured they believe his story, Juan allows them to investigate his house.

The specialists return to the troubled street, before separating to investigate one property each. Funes accompanies Rosentock, who is based at Walter's house. Dr. Albreck and Rosentock theorize the neighborhood acts as a crossover to another dimension of existence that allows dark entities to come from there. The entities apparently travel through water, similar to bacteria. As weird phenomena occur and the investigators begin to die in gruesome and inexplicable ways, Funes realizes he has no choice but to flee the scene or risk losing his own life. After hearing from another officer, he returns to the houses with gasoline, burning them to the ground.

Back at the psychiatric facility, the police attempt to further question Juan but he is distracted by the figure of a tall man behind them, a man who resembles a burned Rosentock. They turn around, seeing nothing except for an empty chair. Suddenly, the chair flies towards the camera.

Cast

 * Maximiliano Ghione as Commissioner Funes
 * Norberto Gonzalo as Jano
 * Elvira Onetto as Dr. Mora Albreck
 * George L. Lewis as Rosentock
 * Julieta Vallina as Alicia
 * Demián Salomón	as Walter
 * Agustín Rittano as Juan
 * Natalia Señorales as Clara
 * Matias Rascovschi as the boy
 * Lorenzo Langer	as Patricio

Release
Terrified was first screened at the Mórbido Fest 2017 in Mexico, followed by an international premiere at the 33rd Mar del Plata International Film Festival. The film received a general release in Argentina on 3 May 2018, opening on a smaller-than-average number of screens (80) but coming seventh at the box office on its opening weekend.

In the United States, Canada and the UK, Terrified was made available for home viewing via the streaming service Shudder.

Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes Terrified holds a "83% fresh" rating, based on 12 reviews, representing a positive response from critics. Vulture placed it among its "Best Horror Movies of 2018 (So Far)", writing: "Terrified won best horror feature at this year’s Fantastic Fest, and is an absolutely excellent tale of the supernatural featuring some amazing deaths and creature effects. Fans of Insidious and The Conjuring should be big fans of this one, too." Kim Newman called it "[e]ffectively spooky stuff" after viewing it at the London FrightFest Film Festival in 2018.

Future
In December 2018, it was reported that Guillermo del Toro intends to produce a remake of the film for Searchlight Pictures.

During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, writer-director Demián Rugna revealed he was working on the second draft of a script for a sequel, Terrified 2.