Release Date – TBC, Cert – TBC, Run-time – 1 hour 14 minutes, Director – Ion de Sosa
Whole a group of teenagers are stranded in a pool surrounded by bloodthirsty dogs a group of wealthy friends get together for a summer party, where other disaster is nearing.
Balearic’s downfall lies in the way that it doesn’t quite set itself up. The opening 15 minute sets up a horror of teenage friends breaking into an empty home only to find themselves stranded in the pool, one of them injured, surrounded by bloodthirsty dobermans ready to attack. Just as the sequence starts to reach its most interesting and tense point the action moves to a summer party seeing another group of wealthy friends gathering together, a wildfire potentially nearing them; not that they have much care for the matter.
Whilst initially feeling like two short films randomly stuck together Balearic’s opening sequence seems to be more and more forgotten about the more time we spend away from the pool. It may be mentioned or suggested towards the final stages, but its more lightly thematically than anything else. Instead, a plodding set of satirical conversations play out, largely around a table outside the home in the hills elsewhere from the one broken into. Yet, the biggest issue with the dialogue that constructs these conversations is it has far less bite than those of the dogs earlier on in the not-quite-set-up.
The film, once it gets to its seeming main points, just feels rather tame, in part because of its blandness and lack of sharpness. Meaning that the short-run time, which thankful still manages to feel drawn out at times. Only towards the end do we get something that feels properly in-tune. It might be that things are intended as a big reveal, but it just feels as if the film has finally found what it properly wants to do after a lot of wandering conversation. Things finally come together, as ash starts to fall on one group of characters like snow; played like a joyous scene from a Christmas film. Yet, all of this, comes too late in a very short run-time. Not having the build-up that it needs to have the effect that it wants. It just made me wish that the whole film took the position and visual style that these final stages do. Unfortunately, for the most part, there’s little bite and not much bark to Balearic either.
Despite a likable horror set-up, Balearic gets bogged down in a satire with very little bite or edge until the very final stages, meaning that it falters as it wanders through its short yet drawn out run-time.
Just A Little Bit Random 