Sci-Fi London Festival 2019: After The Lethargy

Not all sci-fi is about aliens, though you wouldn’t know if from a lot of the films at this years Sci-Fi London Film Festival. The latest is from Spain, After The Lethargy.

Sara Hamilton, Andrea Guasch (“Submergence“, “La Gira (TV)”), is a wannabe journalist who hears about some para-normal activity in an old army base from a DVD she’s bought featuring TV presenter, Mark Schardan (“Megan Leavey”, “Lost In The West”).

She heads out to the forest that contains the army base and meets park ranger, Joe Manjon (“The Man Who Killed Don Quixote”, “Risen”), who takes her on a tour that includes meeting Ed, Ramon Canals (“Framed”, “Sur (Short)”), a man who grunts a lot.

Whether out in the woods or in the abandoned army camp, there’s strange rustling and noises that signs and everyone thinks are bears. But it’s not, it’s aliens, or an alien at least.

A strange encounter with the alien in Ed’s campervan leaves Sara injured with some strange mark on her stomach, our park ranger friend is also injured and covered in strange marks.

As the movie goes on, stranger things occur and Sara begins to learn the truth about the abandoned army camp and her friends who are helping her out.

After The Lethargy is a slow-going, tedious movie and, whilst I applaud that writer and director Marc Carrete’s (“Asmodexia”, “Mal Cuerpo (Short)”) decision to show the alien so early and keep showing it throughout, it seems that budget means it may not have been the wisest decision.

The story is basic and you can predict what’s going to happen with some accuracy way before the movie has got there, and it has a less than hour and a half runtime. It feels longer.

Some of the acting leaves a bit to be desired, but Guasch and Manjon perform their parts well and work well together, carrying the movie which is what it needs.

It isn’t badly directed though, Carrete shows he knows how to handle a camera, it’s just a shame he doesn’t know how to build tension, if that’s what he was actually trying to do. The film is strangely classed as a comedy on IMDB, I can resolutely say it is not.