Macabre…ish Horror Review: 7 Boxes

7 Boxes aka 7 Cajas, 2012/ 110 min.

Victor (Celso Franco) has his eye on a fancy new cell phone which is way out of his price range but he gets word about a gig at a butcher’s shop. A man named Gus has seven boxes he needs to a location across the market and back, the job pays $100, half up front, the other half when he returns.

Meanwhile, another man, Nelson (Víctor Sosa) was supposed to do the job and he is in desperate need of the money for his son’s medicine. So he has a plan to get the load from Victor and the pay. But it won’t be as easy as he expects.

Victor spots him and needs to hide and avoid him, with the help of his relentless friend Liz (Lali Gonzalez), he does it but then someone snatches one of the crates from his trolley and has to chase him down. It turns into a disaster when the guy gets away and the authorities want to inspect his load.

Back at the butchery they discover a terrible miscommunication that could bring the whole organization down. Not only that, someone else, Nelson, over heard the conversation but he doesn’t understand the mix up and he makes an assumption. So he assembles a crew, they work on a split and a plan to intercept the load.

A conspiracy is unravelling and as it does, people die and Victor is being hunted by the authorities and Nelson and his crew.

This Paraguayan thriller is directed by Juan Carlos Maneglia and Tana Schémbori and it’s actually pretty good. In part, because of the great cinematography by Richard Careaga. There is some violence and blood but it’s otherwise mostly action. Good story and pace. The languages are Spanish, Guarani and Korean but there is English subtitles. I really enjoyed this.