Horror movies have long been a staple of first-time directors looking to break into the industry. That's fine, but a welcome trend in recent decades has been the emergence of tightly wound science fiction movies that are poor in budget but rich in ideas. Joining the ranks of Coherence and Primer is Isaac Ezban's The Incident, both a remarkably coherent puzzle-box and a primer of visual storytelling. Policeman Marco (Raúl Méndez) arrests criminal brothers Carlos (Humberto Busto) and Oliver (Fernando Álvarez Rebeil) in their walk-up apartment, but when they try to walk back down they find that stairwell has become an infinite loop with no escape. Meanwhile — sorta — divorcee Sandra (Nailea Norvind) takes her children Daniel (Gabriel Santoyo) and Camila (Paulina Montemayor) on a road trip with Sandra's new boyfriend Roberto (Hernán Mendoza) — except that they keep driving in circles on the same few kilometers of road, the sun never budging. The Incident commits to its premise, stranding its characters in their personal hells for 35 years, going deep into the minutiae of how they survive and what it does to their bodies and their brains. The one misstep is a convoluted third-act explanation of why this impossible thing is happening; after all, the hamster doesn't need to know why it's on the wheel.
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