2025 Popcorn Frights Film Festival Coverage
El Instinto review
A strong premise for horror fails to go far enough to deliver on it.
Festival movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
El Instinto
Directed by Juan Albarracin
Written by Juan Albarracin
Starring Javier Pereira, Fernando Cayo, Eva Llorach, Pepe Villena, Silvia Conesa, Rocio Bernal, Nicolas Edo and Jose Maria del Rio
El Instinto Review
The premise of El Instinto is so strong that you can’t help but walk away from the finished product feeling that it’s a bit of a letdown. Between its interesting take on the home invasion concept to the antagonist’s slow burn commitment to breaking a man’s will…there’s plenty to work with here. Unfortunately, El Instinto feels too rigid and by the numbers with how it gets down to its business. The result is a pretty good movie that never reaches the potential highs it sets up in your mind while watching it.
Abel (Javier Pereira) is agoraphobic. He’s an architect who’s been living in an unfinished home of his own design. It’s been years since he left the building for more than two minutes. Any longer and he’ll have a panic attack. Disaster strikes when his dog gets out and he’s unable to go after him. A man soon arrives with the dog’s body in tow following a car accident. Jose (Fernando Cayo) is apologetic about the situation and wants to make it up to Abel. Jose trains hunting dogs and believes that his methods can help Abel with his agoraphobia. Desperate to better himself (and save his job), Abel decides to give it a try. What could possibly go wrong?
The home invasion aspect of El Instinto immediately opens your mind to the possibilities. Abel is literally unable to leave the building…and he invites Jose into his home. There’s a lot of ways that the story can take that…and it ultimately chooses a pretty good one. It doesn’t deliver it in the most engaging way…but it’s still more original than most home invasion thrillers. Everything starts out well between Abel and Jose. Jose moves into the house so that he and Abel can commit the time to work through Abel’s problem. There’s even some nice progress early on that makes you think Abel has a real chance to turn things around for himself.
El Instinto is broken into three chapters. These open with what appears to be stock footage of an old dog training video which is a nice touch. The first chapter is called Education. This is where Jose and Abel start to form a bond. Jose’s methods involve blindfolding Abel and putting plugs in his ears and trying to extend the areas where he feels safe. There’s a lot of trust involved in the work…and Jose proves himself to be worthy of investing that trust in. For now. It is strange that he keeps referring to Abel as a “good boy” when he does well…but…he does seem to be getting better so you can put up with a little creepiness. Chapter one ends with Jose introducing a shock collar to their trials. This is the moment where a sane person would conclude that they don’t really need to go outside that badly.
As expected, chapter 2 (Obedience) is where things start to go poorly for Abel. The invited home invader begins to slowly break him down. For what ultimate purpose…we don’t know. Perhaps he’s simply trying to break another animal. Maybe he has something even more sinister in mind. The final chapter is called Fetch…which should point you towards how chapter 2 works out for their dynamic. This is all…fine. The performances from Pereira and Cayo are very good. The problem comes from how strongly El Instinto adheres to its chapter concept. Character growth that should feel earned and natural ends up seeming like it came because the next chapter dictated that it does so. That slow burn comes with massive choppiness that threatens to upend the flow of the story. Things escalate like they should…but not as they should.
The biggest issue comes from the film’s inability to find a way to have fun with the premise. When I say “fun” I don’t mean a rollicking good time…I mean doing something with it that is worthy of the time it spends building towards a payoff. El Instinto saves some big moments for the climax, but they aren’t big enough. It feels like there’s a missing fourth chapter where the movie should have had the kind of fun I’m talking about. Without getting into spoilers…I was left wondering what the point of any of this ended up being. Worse, I was left thinking about what could have been done before the obvious (but underwhelming) conclusion. That missing chapter could have elevated El Instinto to something as strong as its interesting premise. Instead, that potential ends up tied down in chains…desperate to break free and do something more.
Scare Value
El Instinto is that classic case of a pretty good movie that fails to reach its full potential. Its biggest issue is that it clearly marked story chapters leave little room for surprise. Each chapter plays out exactly as you’d predict…and it never chooses to go fully off the rails. The result is character progressions that either feel rushed or completely out of nowhere. Which is a damning thing when character arcs are the centerpiece of your story. The concept is strong. The execution leaves you wanting.
