‘Halley’ VOD Review – The Uncomfortable Nature of Social Decay

When watching movies you can take them on face value and just enjoy the explosions and entertainment value or you can look at the underlying meaning and see much more.  This takes more brain work but it also asks you a simple question, what do you get out of this movie? What is it trying to say to you? Halley is a movie that definitely asks you to decide what the meaning is of what you are seeing, instead of just throwing the answer in your face.

halley

Halley is the story of Beto (Alberto Trujillo) a man who to all intent and purposes is dead.  Unable to hide the fact that he is decomposing he decides to withdraw from the world and quits his job in the gym.  In his attempt to quit though his boss (Lucy Trueba) looks to offer him support through his apparent sickness and strives to keep him in the world.

Halley is a film that wants to fool you, it wants to make you believe that Beto is a zombie, then based on that premise have you watch the undead creature live in a society that is very much alive.  In truth, we can’t be sure what keeps him moving but I would argue that Beto is not a zombie at all.  If anything Alberto is a metaphorical representation of an extremely introverted man who can’t handle society.  He just wants to be left alone in a world that moves too fast for him.

If you follow the film in the belief that he is a representation of an introverted individual then it does tend to take a different tone to what could be just another story of the undead.  Yes, to all intents and purposes Beto may be dead to the society around him but he is still a person that we care about and because we see him slowly decomposing we start to feel very uncomfortable.  This is something that overtakes most of the atmosphere of Halley, you are seeing a man slowly decompose on camera in a society that he really doesn’t want to be a part of.

Alberto Trujillo plays his role well, as the world moves at a brisk pace around him, everything about our undead star is slow and methodical.  We care about him and wish there was some way to bring him back to life, but in truth he is dead and we have to deal with that.  What is impressive about the character is that you do expect him to become a zombie and start to attack people, at least in the first half of the film but it soon becomes apparent that no, this man is not what you expect, he is just a shy likable guy that never gets noticed in a world full of life.  Does he want to be part of this life though? I tend to think that the answer is no.

Halley is a film that does want you to actually think about what you are seeing.  This is not just a case of “oh look, a dead guy he must be a zombie”.  The character of Beto represents more than just a moving corpse and that is where the movie is truly alive.  Beto doesn’t want to be a part of society and that makes him a corpse to the world around him.  It doesn’t stop us from caring about him, and that is the tragedy of his character…but also his beauty.

Halley is available to rent or buy on Vimeo.

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