Timecrimes – a Spanish Time Travel Thriller

Timecrimes is an incredible movie about a man trapped in a time travel paradox. This intelligent thriller comes from Spain and is subtitled, but don’t let that sway you from enjoying this mind-bending story. I found this movie to be one of the most engrossing films I’ve seen in quite a while, and it’ll leave you pondering the events long after the credits roll. As a testament to its success, an American version is currently being remade, though I doubt it will be as good as this one.

The movie begins with an older married couple moving into a new home on a beautiful Spanish hillside. After a strange phone call interrupts their unpacking, the wife decides to drive into town for groceries. The husband decides to set a chair up in the back yard and enjoy the weather when he notices a beautiful young woman walking in the woods on the other side of the fence behind his house. He briefly loses sight of her, then realizes she is passed out on the ground. Fearing for her safety and curious as to what’s going on, the man decides to investigate.

Upon finding the woman, the man doesn’t know if she is alive or dead. As he gets closer to try and wake her up, a strange masked man runs up from behind and stabs him in the shoulder. Fearing for his life, the man runs away through the woods and winds up at a large research facility. He eventually finds a scientist working at the facility, and the scientist encourages him to climb inside of a machine and hide until the masked man goes away. Once inside the machine, the top closes and quickly reopens, and from there the man finds himself sent back three hours in time.

What happens over the next hour of this movie will blow your mind in the way things play out. I won’t give any spoilers here, other than to say the man sure puts himself in a very bad situation. He’s caught inside a time paradox and keeps making mistakes in trying to recreate certain events in order to break the loop. It doesn’t take long before he makes matters even worse, and what adds even more dread to the scenario is that the man’s wife could get back home any minute and her life could very well be in danger.

If you are familiar with the concept of Schrodinger’s Cat, then you are really going to like this movie. If not, I suggest you research the topic a little before seeing the movie, as that famous quantum mechanics experiment plays a huge role in the story. Also take notice of the young woman’s shirt – it has a graphic showing mirror image cats. In a way, she is the Schrodinger’s Cat of the movie. The cast of The Big Bang Theory would probably consider this one of their favorite films.

Another thing that really impressed me about this movie, other than the story being so compelling, was that it was shot on a very low budget. There are no special effects and the cast only has a handful of actors. Instead, it uses clever film making techniques and a multi-layered plot to keep the audience interested. I much prefer a good story than watching CGI cartoon explosions.

If you’re tired of all the dumb popcorn movies that tend to come out of Hollywood, I suggest you watch Timecrimes. It’ll really make you think, and there are not enough movies like that.