Alejandro Amenabar's 1996 thriller, Tesis, was the Spanish helmer's first feature-length film, following the duo of shorts, Himenoptero (1991) and Luna (1995). It's also his weakest effort to date. It bows to cliche, has a far-from-engrossing third-act, and generally tramples around the field of formulaic thriller convention in a manner thankfully absent from his later work.

Tesis concerns the age-old threat of the "Snuff Movie", with University student Angela, played by Ana Torrent, uncovering some damnable conspiracy amidst the gloomy, poorly-lit halls of the aforementioned institution, involving the murder of innocent women-folk being filmed and sold on for extortionate rates.

Obviously this was made way back when, so folks were unable to just type in a few carefully-chosen words in Kazaa and be rewarded with all the carnage they could handle. In order to see genuine, actual killings and so on, one presumably had to seek out such tapes on the black market, or a similarly dark retail outlet, or else wait for the post-watershed news bulletins. The latter option, of course, involves learning stuff and generally being burdened with ghastly educational banter amidst the gut-spewing.

Anyhow, Angela teams up with Chema, played by Fele Martinez, who himself has a vast collection of grisly and violent pornography, presumably with titles like Faces Of Dead Corpses and Death On Camera and Police! Camera! Action!

Tesis conforms to any number of suppositions, not least the adopted grammar of the Snuff flick. Single shot, one room, no attractive wall coverings, woman is tortured, then killed, the end. It is also a good deal less smart than it thinks it is. Most of time, the action occurs at least seven miles from the nearest Intelligent Plot Development. The big twist is less a twist than a slight bend that can be noted with fairly little effort at least five minutes into the proceedings.

When it goes off on its own little dalliances, however, Tesis is highly entertaining. Chema, though obsessed with filmic violence and sporting a ridiculous hair-style, is a fully-rounded, believable character, and not some snarling, trench-coat wearing deviant like is so often the case when those intrigued by such fare are represented onscreen.