Last Stop: Rocafort St.

It is like Barcelona’s version of Kisaragi Station, the supposedly haunted Japanese train station that has become the stuff of urban legend, even though it never really existed. Haunted or not, Rocafort Street has undeniably become a magnet for suicides. That would have been a good question to for Laura to have asked about during her interview. However, she needs this job as the station’s night attendant, so she stays long enough to witness a suicide. She then sees a lot more after that in Luis Prieto’s Last Stop: Rocafort St., which releases this Friday on VOD.

As we witness during the prologue, it wasn’t just suicides that happened in the Rocafort stop. It was there that notorious serial killer Elias Soro killed his final victims. The investigating detective, Roman Azpuru tried to stop him, but things turned out badly for everyone, including the disgraced Azpuru.

Nevertheless, Laura turns to Azpuru after witnessing a train engineer’s suicide. The distraught man told her not to look, but she did so anyway. Now she is seeing grotesque visions of the victim and perhaps the gory fates of others around her. There also seems to be a devil dog haunting the lower tracks, but when you see him, you’re really done for—because he is like Cerberus.

Initially, Prieto and co-screenwriters Ivan Ledesma and Angel Agudo follow the playbook of Asian horror films riffing on the Kisaragi mythos, like the Korean Ghost Station. However, they add elements of Aztec death cult mythology that probably appeals to Spain’s colonial guilt, but also distinguishes Rocafort from other haunted station films, like The Sound (which featured Toronto’s infamous Lower Bay subway stop).

Pusher: Remade with Refn’s Blessing

Kids, pay attention to the following unsolicited guidance counseling: selling drugs may sound like a quick and an easy way to make money, but it can land you deep in debt to the wrong sort of people.  One London dealer learns this the hard way in Luis Prieto’s remake of Nicholas Winding Refn’s Pusher (trailer here), executive-produced by Danish filmmaker, which opens this Friday in New York.

Frank goes to a lot of parties and folks are always happy to see him, because he is the man with the drugs.  He enjoys living the fast life with his girlfriend Flo, a stripper who turns the odd pro gig on the side.  Together with his loser sidekick Tony he deals on an unsentimental, cash-and-carry basis.  However, he makes the mistake of leveraging himself with Milo, a notorious Balkan gangster, when a mysterious former associate pops up looking to buy a serious chunk of cocaine.  When the cops break up the deal, Frank is still on the hook with Milo.

Over the next week, Frank will careen through London, trying to collect debts and set-up a Hail Mary score, but not at the expense of his hedonistic lifestyle.  Eventually, Milo’s top enforcer Hakan will even lend a kneecap-breaking hand, knowing full well he will soon turn his talents on Frank.

If any film were ever amped up on coke it would be Prieto’s Pusher, an English language reboot of a Danish film from a Spanish director, featuring the Croatian-born Zlatko Burić, reprising the role of Milo, whom he portrayed throughout Refn’s original trilogy.  Propelled by a disorienting techno soundtrack, the film never gives the audience a minute to reconsider their sympathetic investment in the amoral Frank.  Instead, we just root along with him out of respect for his high wire act.

Often teetering on the brink of full-on substance related mania, Richard Coyle is impressively intense as Frank.  Following his genial turn in the tight-little-island creature mash-up Grabbers, it is quite a surprise to see he had this in him.  Model turned actress Agyness Deyn also far exceeds expectations, portraying Flo with dignity and depth.  Once again, Burić does his thing, villainously chewing the scenery as Milo.  Yet, the standout support comes from Mem Ferda, unusually smart and funny as the philosophical Hakan.  Unfortunately, Bronson Webb is just uncharismatic dead weight as the annoying-by-the-numbers Tony.

Cinematographer Simon Dennis tries to out slick every Michael Mann crime drama ever with his cool neon and noir look.  Sleazy but effective escapism, what Prieto’s Pusher lacks in depth it makes up for with its unpretentious directness.  Recommended for those nostalgic for Miami Vice and the sort of old school Britspoitation films that always seemed to have Roy Budd soundtracks, Pusher opens this Friday (10/26) in New York at the Village East Cinema.