I have wanted to see 99.9 ever since a write up in Shivers horror magazine back in 1997 (I think around the same time that they highlighted the original Funny Games) of this as the most extreme film that was playing the festival circuit at the time. The details of the review are a little bit fuzzy at the moment but I seem to recall the description of it as a 'mother/daughter incest ghost story' that at one point apparently involves
someone taking a bath in seminal juices.
So it potentially could fit in with the current
Portrait of A Lady On Fire/Ammonite trend!
EDIT: Ah, I found the mention of 99.9 from issue #48 of Shivers from December 1997 (page 37), which comes from Alan Jones' report from the 1997 Sitges Film Festival, which was rather lukewarm on the film:
Alan Jones wrote:One of the most highly anticipated movies of the entire festival received its world premiere next. Director Augusti Villaronga had traumatised/disgusted/shocked/offended audiences (delete where applicable) with his mesmerising
Tras El Cristal / In A Glass Cage in 1986. What would the Mallorcan director responsible for that horrific exploration into homosexual Nazi sadism offer up now? The answer was
99.9 starring Maria Barranco as Lara, the presenter of a radio show about paranormal phenomena. Investigating the suspicious death of a child she uncovers a dark world of closeted homosexuality, supernatural beings in the walls of a dilapidated country house and a fiercely protective mother and daughter who commit incestuous acts of depravity and sacrificial murder to ensure the poltergeists remain close by.
From that description
99.9 sounds wonderfully cutting edge and disturbing and, up to a point, it is. But after the brilliant opening where nude Gustavo Slameron is chased by spirits through a cemetery and ends up viciously impaled on spikes, it marks time alarmingly and only offers fleeting glimpses of the awesome talent the director previously showed in
Tras El Cristal,
Child of the Moon and
Clandestine Journey. The climax in which
Terele Pavez and Ruth Gabriel bathe in each other's vaginal fluids to cement their relationship with the "Wall Faces"
seemed more like a desperate attempt to stir controversy than drive the film to a satisfying conclusion.
Tras El Cristal fans will not want to miss it though and we have already selected this beautifully photographed Spanish entry for inclusion in Fantasm 1998.
Also interestingly in the same article Jones was quite dismissive of the first feature by José Luis Guerín (now probably best known for 2007's In The City of Sylvia),
Tren de Sombras / Train of Shadows: "One of the worst movies I have sat through in my life... It purports to be a reflection on cinema as art, light, poetry and dreams. Alas, Guerín fakes footage with sepia washes and scratches, holds static shots of streets for five minutes, focuses on wallpaper as shadows move across it, and endlessly rewinds scenes to play them over and over again in mind-numbing close up or from different angles. I was bored rigid. I didn't think Guerín's patience-tester was Fantasy so much as a torture from some new Spanish Inquisition. Incredibly, two of the Jury loved it and my heart sank as I realised I had an enormous fight on my hands to stop it winning anything."
So that immediately adds Train of Shadows to my list of titles to track down, as it sounds right up my alley!
(If you want to know the titles that Alan Jones liked from the festival those were Nacho Cerda's astonishing short piece
Aftermath (NSFW), Scott Reynolds' The Ugly and Lawn Dogs)
