The Last Matinee

The Last Matinee (titled *Al morir la matinée* in Spanish, and also released as *Red Screening*) is a 2020 slasher film directed by Maximiliano Contenti. It was produced as a joint effort between Uruguay, Mexico, and Argentina, and features Luciana Grasso, Ricardo Islas, Julieta Spinelli, and Franco Durán. The movie first came out in Uruguay in September 2020. The story takes place in 1993 in Montevideo, where Ana, an engineering student, steps in to run the projector at her father’s struggling movie theater. She has no idea that a killer wearing black gloves is systematically slaughtering the audience while they watch the film.

The plot begins with a man in black slipping into a rundown cinema in Montevideo. As a thriller plays on screen, he quietly kills an old man. The other patrons—three teenagers, a couple on a date, a boy who sneaks in, and a girl waiting for her boyfriend—remain unaware. Ana arrives and convinces her father, the projectionist, to let her take over so he can rest. He reluctantly leaves. While Ana prepares to study, security guard Mauricio stops by the projection booth to ask about his alarm clock. She sends him away, and he heads downstairs. After the ticket seller leaves, the killer murders Mauricio and bars the theater doors with a metal rod. He tries to get into the projection room, but Ana has locked it.

Inside the theater, a teenager named Goni flirts with the lone girl. As they kiss, the killer impales both their heads with the metal bar. Meanwhile, the couple, Gabriela and Horacio, get ready to leave, but Gabriela gives Horacio a hand job, prompting him to go to the men’s room. The killer follows and kills him in a stall. Ana finds Mauricio’s alarm clock and searches for him, but returns to the projection room without success. Goni’s friends, Angela and Esteban, grow worried. Angela goes to check on Goni and finds him and the girl dead. The killer then stabs Gabriela in the heart with a pocket knife. When the film breaks, Ana mistakes the audience’s screams for complaints and fixes the movie. She eventually goes down into the theater, discovers all the victims with their eyes gouged out, and is horrified. She meets a terrified Angela, who knocks the killer out with a fire extinguisher. They try to escape, but find Mauricio’s corpse and realize the killer has the keys. When the killer wakes up, he chases the boy Tomás, but Ana