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| Director: | Gerardo Herrero | ||
| Producer: | Gerardo Herrero | ||
| Screenplay: | Ángela Armero | ||
| Cinematography: | David Omedes | ||
| Editing: | Teresa Font | ||
| Music: | Vanessa Garde | ||
| Language: | Spanish | ||
| Distributor: | A Contracorriente Films |
The Goya Murders (Spanish; Castilian: '''El asesino de los caprichos'''|links=no) is a 2019 Spanish-Belgian crime thriller film directed by Gerardo Herrero and written by Ángela Armero which stars Maribel Verdú and Aura Garrido alongside Roberto Álamo, Ginés García-Millán, Daniel Grao and Ruth Gabriel.
A couple of police investigators with different backgrounds and antagonistic personalities (Carmen Cobos and Eva González) track a serial killer who starts to leave a trail of crime scenes mirroring the scenes from Francisco Goya's Los caprichos in Madrid.[1]
A Spanish-Belgian co-production, the film was produced by Tornasol and Los asesinatos de Goya AIE alongside Entre Chien et Loup, with the participation of RTVE and Movistar+ and support from ICAA and the Madrid and Navarra regional administrations.[2] It was shot in Madrid, Pamplona and Brussels.[3]
The film screened out of competition at the 52nd Sitges Film Festival in October 2019.[4] [5] Distributed by A Contracorriente Films, The Goya Murders was theatrically released in Spain on 18 October 2019.
Raquel Hernández Luján of HobbyConsolas scored 58 out of 100 points ("so-so"), considering that "its anticlimactic script squanders a visually appealing" premise, assessing the Verdú and Garrido duo to be the best thing about the film, while citing the focus on a personal debacle instead of the police subplot, the characters making stupid decisions and the "disappointing" ending as the worst elements about it.[6]
Mireia Mullor of Fotogramas rated the film 2 out of 5 stars, highlighting the tandem formed by Verdú and Garrido as the best thing about it, while resenting the inability to deliver "anything more than a cliché-filled thriller".[7]
Francisco Marinero of El Mundos Metrópoli scored 2 out of 5 stars citing the presence of very skilled performers as a positive point, while pointing out at "a contrived plot with countless clichés of the genre" as a negative point.[8]
Janire Zurbano of Cinemanía gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, considering that it "is predictable from its approach to the composition of its characters", yet it manages to entertain, "while the talent of the Verdú-Garrido tandem does the rest".[9]
Javier Ocaña of El País underscored the film to be "entertaining, it has a good pace and some interesting points" yet, in addition to certain unevenness in the supporting performances, the result falls short because of the stereotypes and the plot predictability.[10]