La Cabina/El Televisor review – horror and anxiety on the air and down the line in Franco’s Spain (opens in new tab)

José Luis López Vázquez’s phone box nightmare is short and sharp but Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s TV fever dream overplays its handTwo macabre Spanish TV plays from the 1970s are being released as a double bill: Antonio Mercero’s La Cabina (★★★★★) is a cult 1972 surreal short film lasting just 35 minutes but encompassing an entire dreamworld of anxiety. It was conceived for television in the spirit of Alfred Hitchcock Presents or Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected, but I can imagine it shown i...