# Spanish cult film Rapture explores obsession, addiction and cinema’s uncanny power

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/rapture-review-cult-spanish-horror-is-a-deeply-strange-cheese-dream-of-cinemania/
- Published: 2026-09-30T08:00:20+00:00
- Updated: 2026-09-30T09:34:45+00:00
- Original publisher: The Guardian (publisher lean: Left)
- Original article: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/sep/30/rapture-review-cult-spanish-horror-pedro-almodovar
- Topics: Culture, Entertainment, Europe, Fashion, Film, Horror, Offbeat, Paranormal, Weird & Viral, World

## Key points

- Cult 1979 Spanish film that influenced Pedro Almodóvar's filmmaking approach
- Drug-addicted characters find rapture in filmmaking, blending addiction and cinematic obsession
- Atmospheric horror exploring vampire-like immersion in cinema with disturbing imagery

## Summary

Rapture (Arrebato) is a 1979 Spanish cult supernatural mystery that offers a deeply unnerving, atmospheric experience despite some longueurs and dated acting. The film carries significance as an influential work that shaped Pedro Almodóvar's filmmaking approach—Almodóvar himself provided voice-over work for a female character—with its themes of cinephilia, double narratives, queer euphoria and extended flashbacks echoing throughout his later career.

The film follows José, a struggling horror film director battling heroin addiction, played by Eusebio Poncela alongside Cecilia Roth as his co-dependent partner Ana. When José encounters his eccentric cousin Pedro, a fellow addict who channels his obsession into making increasingly surreal Super 8 films—including bizarre time-lapse footage of himself sleeping—he recognises a kindred spirit consumed by what Pedro calls "rapture": the euphoric sensation of filming that temporarily cancels out addiction's agony. Functioning as both a vampire film and an addiction narrative, Rapture explores the "sublime yet unwholesome" experience of total cinematic immersion, with most conventional scares reserved for the final five minutes, though disturbing imagery—including a red-eyed Betty Boop doll and an erect penis paired with burning cigarette ash—punctuates the uncanny atmosphere.

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