Painless - original title Insensibles – is a 2012 Spanish fantasy horror film directed by Juan Carlos Medina. It stars Alex Brendemühl, Tomas Lemarquis and Ilias Stothart. One of the writers of REC, Luiso Berdejo, co-wrote the film.
Plot teaser:
In the 1930s, a group of children are born with a rare condition: they feel no pain. After being locked away for life for their own safety, the children are subjected to rehabilitation away from society. In the present day, David is a brilliant neurosurgeon, utterly driven in his job. Following a deadly accident and a near terminal cancer diagnosis, the only treatment left for David leads him into the dark secrets his parents had kept hidden. David s present and past become intertwined with the fate of the painless, his investigations uncovering horrors and secrets that others had chosen to forget…
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“Medina’s Painless is much more of a straight-forward metaphor for the secrets, lies and the collective guilty consciences that Spain still carries through the people alive to this day whose work sustained fascism through violent means. And he does this without ever being sensational or preachy. Instead he lets David’s tender and emotional story unravel to reveal big themes that can be considered and debated over well after the film finishes alongside a very personal journey you can truly empathise with.” Britflicks
“While initially intriguing in sheer set-up, playing on themes of dread of difference and coldness as a survival response to negative stimuli, an overall lack of plausibility or payoff, exacerbated by childish gratuity and gore, makes this a mostly painful cinematic experience.” Exclaim!
“Like most horror movies, Painless is also unapologetically pulpy. The characters are two-dimensional at best, with no clear focus for audience sympathy, while the overheated plot is thick with improbable coincidences and loose ends. But these flaws come with the territory, of course. Within the rules of the genre, Medina has still made an impressive, imaginative and commendably ambitious debut.” The Hollywood Reporter
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