Cosas feas (2010) watch online HD

This film was director Isaac Ezban's thesis project at film school in the Universidad Iberoamericana and was one of the biggest and must ambitious thesis projects ever made in the history of that school. He spent almost two years working to get it done, fighting with everyone and everything to be able to make exactly the kind of film he wanted to make. His professors and thesis directors spent all this time telling him that his screenplay was too long and complicated to be made, but he insisted on doing it anyway, and in the end he surprised everyone with a film that had a much better quality than anyone had anticipated. Unfortunately, after the big success that the film had on its private screenings and film festivals, professors and thesis directors at film school still didn't approved it to be shown on the thesis film screenings at the Universidad Iberoamericana, arguing that Isaac Ezban had never listened to any of the comments of his professors while making his film and, therefore, it couldn't be considered to be presented for educational purposes. Due to his love for his school, Isaac Ezban was devastated by this decision, and still waits for the day when they'll let him present his film at his former school.

Director Isaac Ezban combined many different influences to make this film. His aim was to create a B-Movie like those of director Ed Wood, that at the same time had a clever and well constructed plot combining subjects and styles of directors like David Cronenberg, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Terry Gilliam and Richard Kelly.

One of the most expected scenes of the film is the one where actress 'Julia Carrillo' is portrayed naked with a giant mutant vagina coming out of her body. David Cronenberg's The Brood (1979) was one of the biggest inspirations for director Isaac Ezban to imagine and create this scene. Prosthetics and special effects supervisor Alfredo Garcia was hired to design and built this mutant vagina, and he spent almost 4 months locked in his workshop building it, creating a design based on books of pictures from H.R. Giger's work and books of pictures of skin diseases. The amount of work for the design and building of the prosthetic was so heavy that it was not finished in time for the shooting, and it actually didn't arrive on set until 24 hours after the scene was supposed to be shot, on a 12 day shooting plan. The day it was supposed to arrive on set, the crew actually wasted 24 hours of work, although some of the crew members like director of photography Francisco Ohem and assistant director 'Carlos Hernandez' didn't waste their time so much, because they spent the day making an experimental documentary called "Vagina's Day", which Isaac Ezban later included on the Special Edition DVD (besides the documentary of the whole making-of of the film, called "Let's Make a Dirty Movie"). When the mutant vagina finally arrived on set the next day, even-tough there was not enough time to make the scene and Isaac Ezban, assistant director Carlos Hernandez and all the crew were going crazy, they all managed to team up and do the scene to be back on time, although they did spent two nights without sleep, working full time in what was almost two 24-hour straight days of shooting. While finally shooting the mutant vagina scene, and because the prosthetic actually started in the breasts of Julia Carrillo, she had to be on her knees for almost 9 hours without standing up (while the special effects crew glued the mutant vagina to her body prior to shooting and then, at the shooting, controlled it from under the fake bed made out of wood). While she did the scene, she couldn't stop crying because of the extreme pain she felt on her legs, and still she managed to perform amazingly as if she was having a great orgasm.

One of the biggest challenges of the production was to get the actor who would play the main role, an 11 year old boy to play Kriko Krakinsky. Director Isaac Ezban spent months and months talking to parents of children actors, who at first always agreed on letting their children be on the film, even after listening what it was about, but then, after reading the screenplay, rejected immediately, saying that they would never let their children be in a movie like this. Luckily enough, he finally found Mijael Askenazi, a gifted and talented young actor that was able to play the role in great shape. Mijael's parents gave full permission for their son to act on the film, with only one condition: that he would never see the mutant vagina on set or on the scene. This was a though challenge, as the action that takes place on the mutant vagina's scene is actually Kriko Krakinsky looking at it directly, but the crew managed to shoot the scene without Mijael ever seeing the prosthetic: one day the mutant vagina with actress Julia Carrillo was shot, and another day Mijael's reactions were shot. To get the idea that they were both in the same room at the same time, scenes with Julia Carrillo wearing a topless shirt and Mijael Askenazi walking behind her back were shot, framing the actress from her bottom-up, so that it would appear that she was naked and Kriko was either entering or going out of the room. This shot was the key to give the idea in the editing that they were both on the same room and at the same time. To shoot Mijael's reactions, Isaac Ezban told him to look as if he was seeing a woman being eaten by crabs (although some crew members argued later that Mijael probably had a pretty good idea of what he was supposed to be looking at).

To secure the location of the school, producers Pamela Hernandez and Miriam Mercado (who is also director Isaac Ezban's girlfriend) had to lie a little bit to the school's principal, saying that this was just the story of teenage boys at high-school (and not saying any of the creepy and crazy parts of the plot). This technique was similar to the one that Isaac Ezban used to secure a restaurant for a location in "Cookie", one of his first short films. In the weekend that the school scenes were shot, production assistant Isaac Cherem and casting director Maria Fernanda Terrazas managed to get over 80 boys and teenagers to play as extras in the background of the scenes, although their technique was also quite unorthodox: they told the boys that they were "actors", and never told them they were "extras". When extras director Guillermo Ortiz started calling them as what they were, their parents (who were also in the shooting) started to complain, arguing that the only reason they had brought they children in the first place was because they thought they would be "actors", not "extras". The boys and their parents started leaving the set little by little, and by the end of the weekend, on Sunday evening, when the last scene at school was shot, the set missed so many extras that all crew members had to appear on it. This scene was the dolly-out of Kriko Krakinsky walking in the main hall of the school and looking at teenager's parts of their body. For example, the ass that is splatted belongs to production designer Adelle Achar, and the ass that shakes belongs to sound editor Daniel Maurer.

A lot of elements in the post-production of the film were also based on B-Movies: the music composed by Fernando Alanis and Fabian Arellano, the sound design made by 'Daniel Maurer', and the color correction, for which director Isaac Ezban especially asked director of photography Francisco Ohem (who also made the color correction) to watch Richard Kelly's The Box (2009) as many times as he could.

One of the longest and most important parts of the preproduction process for this film was the casting department. In one of the auditions, director Isaac Ezban met actor Victor Bonilla and, as his character would have no dialogue at all during the film, asked him to simply act as if he was eating a giant hamburger. Only 5 seconds after the audition started, Isaac Ezban knew that Victor Bonilla would be the ideal choice for the role of Erbert Krakinsky (the teenager who in the film eats the mutant vagina). Also, it was in this same audition that Isaac Ezban met actors José Fuentes, which, even though they couldn't get a role in "Cosas Feas", got the main roles for Isaac Ezban's next film, "Hambre". Actress Aida Torres, who played Eldora Krakinsky, only decided to come to the audition the same day it was held, sending an email to Isaac Ezban on that very same day with her pictures and voice demos (as she is also a narrator). She was only aiming to get the role of the narrator, but when Isaac Ezban saw her pictures, he was sure this was the actress he needed to play and eccentric and overprotective mother like Eldora Krakinsky, and called her right away. As for actor Miguel Couturier, who played the role of Wilford Krakinsky, he joined the project months after the audition, when Isaac Ezban contacted him after seeing him in the play 'The Diary of Anne Frank'. 'Carlos Aragon', who ended up recording the voice of the narrator, also plays a detective in one of Isaac Ezban's top 50 films of all time, _KM 31: Kilometre 31 (2006)_.

This was the first time that director Isaac Ezban worked with director of photography Francisco Ohem, who only joined the project 4 weeks before the shooting started, when director of photography 'Manuel Caballero' had to quit for professional reasons.

For the bathtub scene, production designer Adelle Achar ran out of brown tint, so she had to use coffee to make the water look darker. This made the snakes that swam on the water with actors Miguel Couturier and Aida Torres go really crazy, although insects trainer Juan Alcantara was next to the bathtub to make sure they wouldn't get hurt. For the scene where these same actors have sex with scorpions on them at the kitchen, Juan Alcantara putted a small plastic ball on the scorpions tale, so that they wouldn't sting on the actors with their poison. After all the preparation for both scenes, Miguel Couturier and Aida Torres were really comfortable with the insects.

A lot of crew members have told stories about how director Isaac Ezban wouldn't let go of his lucky amulet during the whole 12 days of shooting. This amulet was simply a paperback of Stephen King's 'Carrie'. Ezban said later that there were many reasons why this was his lucky amulet: first, because Stephen King has always been one of his idols, second, because 'Carrie' was the first story that really lifted King's career, and Ezban really wanted the same luck with "Cosas Feas", and last but not least, because the plot in "Cosas Feas" and the plot in 'Carrie' have some similarities in story (like the fact that they both deal with a character that feels different and alienated from everyone else) and themes (in both stories, the main scenario for the plot is a school, and they both deal with subjects as bullying and teenager's behavior at school).

Although must of the story takes place in a house (the Krakinsky family residence), it was actually shot in 4 different houses in very different parts of Mexico, including two different states of the country.

The crew that worked in the film glued together for so much time and with such intense experiences that they formed real-life relationships that have stayed up to this date, like for example, the romantic relationship between production manager Paulina Martinez and script supervisor Alex Salinas started on the set.

In all the scenes that take place in the house's bathroom, the camera was placed in such way that it was impossible for anyone (not even director Isaac Ezban or director of photography Francisco Ohem) to be inside the bathroom with the actors while the scene was shot. Since those days the production couldn't afford an external HD monitor, the way to shoot these scenes was quite slow and unpractical: Isaac Ezban would rehearse with the actors, Francisco Ohem would place and frame the camera, then they both went outside, the scene was shot, then they came in, lowered the camera and looked at it. If it was not all right, the process had to be repeated until the scene could come out well.

Lead young actor Mijael Askenazi (who plays Kriko Krakinsky), is actually the youngest brother of 'Salomon Askenazi' (one of the two owners and founders of Yellow Films)

Shot in 12 consecutive days.

After the film was first shown, many people remarked to director Isaac Ezban that the mutant vagina idea related heavily to ideas in psychoanalysis, which he was unaware of before shooting. Psychologist Axel Valle said that the film not only related to this in the mutant vagina scene, but also in its plot, characters and ideas. Because of this, Valle agreed to make a special audio commentary on the Special Edition DVD.