By Ryan Broderick

Most low budget American horror movies promise pretty much the usual garbage. Lots of blood, probably a ton of nudity and not much for a viewer who isn’t a sociopath to really be interested in.

“Timescrimes” (“Los cronocrímenes”) started pretty similarly to its American peers. There’s a bunch of no name actors, clumsy dialogue and odd placed nudity (yeah it was weird). But then the 15-minute mark passes and it becomes an entirely different beast. What starts as a pretty hackneyed horror flick becomes one of the more engrossing and tightly written movies about time travel out there. Weird right?

The movie follows a normal guy named Hector. He’s moving into his new house out in the country when he suddenly sees a woman undressing in the woods and then sees signs of a struggle. He ventures into the woods to see what’s wrong (don’t do that) and then gets stabbed by a man with bandages on his face. Running from his mysterious assailant he ends up in a strange complex with an even stranger machine in it. He hides in the machine. When he gets out its daylight, but its not the next morning, it’s the previous.

It’s a neat little movie, directed incredibly effectively by first time director Nacho Vigalondo, but the real star of the film is the narrative. Vigalondo’s script is so detailed and rewarding in its twists and pay-offs that movie is more fun than any big budget movie that’s been out in a while. While it gets a bit predictable in the last 20 minutes, by that point the fun is just seeing the film unravel its punch line, like a joke you know is coming.

Of course “Timecrimes” has its flaws. The acting is weak, the editing gets strange and the score is interesting but gets a little over the top towards the end. But what the movie lacks in polish it certainly makes up in entertainment value.

It’s funny how every once in a while you stumble across a movie that can remind you what its like to lose yourself in a movie again. It’s even better when you find out that little movie was a pet project of a first time filmmaker.

So, next time you see what could be some straight to DVD movie in a Wal-Mart somewhere give it another look. 99.9% of the time it’ll be garbage. But that .1% of the time, you’ll find a gem.