Movie · 2023 · Fantasy, Comedy, Horror · 1h 51m · R · Spanish
Curator score: 3.6/10 (98.6K ratings)
Things are about to get bloody...
Overview
After living for over two centuries, Augusto Pinochet is a vampire ready to die… but the vultures around him won't let him go without one last bite.
Ratings
Curator score: 3.6/10
IMDb: 6.3/10
Letterboxd: 3.14/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 83%
Metacritic: 72
TMDB: 6.1/10
Director
Pablo Larraín
Production
Fabula
Cast
Jaime Vadell, Gloria Münchmeyer, Alfredo Castro, Paula Luchsinger, Stella Gonet, Catalina Guerra, Amparo Noguera, Antonia Zegers, Marcial Tagle, Diego Muñoz, Clemente Rodríguez, Rosario Zamora, Sofia Maluk, Marcelo Alonso, Daniel Contesse, Daniela Seguel, Jaime McManus, Alessandra Guerzoni, Mariela Mignot, Josefina González
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, audacious political satire with striking black-and-white imagery and a nasty sense of humor, but its deadpan absurdism and deliberately tangled plotting can make it feel more clever than fully satisfying. Best approached as a grotesque allegory about power, corruption, and historical rot rather than a streamlined vampire story.
Best for
viewers who like political satire with a surreal edge
fans of arthouse horror and black comedy
people interested in Latin American cinema and historical allegory
audiences who enjoy formal, monochrome cinematography
Skip if
you want a fast, coherent genre plot
you dislike deadpan absurdity and tonal coldness
you prefer horror with scares over metaphor
you are sensitive to anti-authoritarian satire or historical political references
Overview
El Conde turns Augusto Pinochet into a centuries-old vampire, and the joke lands because it is both blunt and barbed. Pablo Larraín uses the undead premise as a way to literalize greed, parasitism, and the way authoritarian power feeds on a country long after the headlines fade.
Worth noting
The film’s strongest asset is its look: stark black-and-white images that give the satire a funereal, gothic chill. It has a nasty wit and a few inspired reversals, but the narrative is intentionally labyrinthine, sometimes to the point of feeling shaggy or overextended.
Bottom line
If you’re in the mood for a political horror-comedy that treats history as a haunted house, it’s a memorable provocation. If you want a cleaner escalation of jokes, scares, or plot, the movie’s chilly detachment may keep you at arm’s length.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Catalina (1★) · 2999 likes
As a fellow Chilean, fuck this shit and Pablo Larrain, his family and Fabula producciones.
I guess making a movie about something else than the most horrid era (with little justice made and that your direct family profited from) our country has seen takes too much creativity and genuine film director abilities: too much to ask.
If i can give credits to Pablo for something, it is for monopolizing the Chilean cinema industry with mediocre productions with the same five elite… more As a fellow Chilean, fuck this shit and Pablo Larrain, his family and Fabula producciones.
I guess making a movie about something else than the most horrid era (with little justice made and that your direct family profited from) our country has seen takes too much creativity and genuine film director abilities: too much to ask.
If i can give credits to Pablo for something, it is for monopolizing the Chilean cinema industry with mediocre productions with the same five elite… more
Simon (3★) · 1556 likes
El Cunt
Jay (2.5★) · 1393 likes
the greatest horror of all was the prospect that thatcher may still be alive
Emanuele Antolini (3★) · 1364 likes
A dictator walks home alone at night
davidehrlich (3★) · 937 likes
Everyone knows that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet died in December 2006 at the age of 91, more than 30 years after he seized power from Salvador Allende in a coup d’état that was followed by censorship, torture, mass internments, and forced disappearances at the pleasure of an unelected regime that drained the country of its lifeblood for generations to come. What Pablo Larraín’s cheeky and grotesque “El Conde” (or “The Count”) presupposes is… what if he didn’t?
Directly addressing a… more
1962 · Comedy, Drama, Fantasy · 1h 33m · NR · Curator 9.2/10 (107.1K ratings) · Where to watch: Cultpix
A savage allegory of class confinement and social rot, with a similarly surreal, trapped feeling.
Topics
political horror, black comedy, arthouse, gothic, satire, black-and-white cinematography, historical allegory, Latin American cinema, vampire metaphor, absurdist