The Body – Review

A man runs frenetically through a dark forest holding a flashlight until he is out of breath, and then runs some more. As he finally gets down to a street, he is immediately pasted by a car. This man was Angel Torres (Gelabert), night guard at the local Forensics Institute morgue, and he remains in a coma at the hospital.

Getting a call about a situation is Inspector Jaime Peña (Coronado) who has just gotten back from Berlin. He visits Torres in the hospital and gets a briefing from fellow officer Agent Pablo (Shuk). The pair hit the morgue after to find another mystery brewing. Torres apparently left his post at around 8:30, and ran through the woods, and called for a patrol car.

Getting even weirder is that there is a missing body in the morgue itself, one of recently deceased Mayka Villaverde (Rueda). Who is this lady? A wealthy businesswoman married to younger man Alejandro Ulloa (Silva). Hmmm…

The Body is an interesting setup and a decent execution of a twisty mystery thriller. The acting is top notch and the moody settings create a chilling atmosphere for the plot to play out. There are some flashbacks interjected into the ongoing thriller to give characters additional context and dump out information to the audience, but they don’t ruin the flow.

If you are into captivating dark plots and exciting tense drama, The Body checks those boxes. It is short enough that pacing is no issue and the quality directing keeps the suspense levels high. While it gets a bit out there, it’s a decent story overall.

This has been remade in South Korea as The Vanished (Sarajin bam) in 2018. I don’t remember it all that well, but overall, I liked it, and did not know it was a remake when I saw it. I will add a review for it if I get a shot at seeing it again. This was also remade in Italy, Indonesia and India.