I have to say, at first I didn’t know exactly how to feel about Corazón Attack’s video for “El Club de la Casa del Árbol.” On the positive side, the track is pretty good, with a mixture of punk rock, pop, and a horn section thrown in for good measure. It’s faster, poppier, and it gives a shout out to masters like Operation Ivy. The video, on the other hand, is a perplexing cross between The Lost Boys and The Sandlot-–substitute baseball bats with hockey sticks—with some horror to boot. It reminds me of a psychobilly song made into moving pictures, not necessarily in a good way.
There is no doubt that “El Club de la Casa del Árbol” is a fun song made for a short-lived moshpit. You can tell the regiomontano band put a lot of thought into creating a track with such a catchy, almost-innocent tune. This is in sharp contrast with the video, which features the band carving out weapons out of tree branches and proceeding to beat the crap out of each other in a cabin in the woods, only to go kidnap a girl and force her to be their friend. They also force feed her cake, an image I could’ve done without.
In their biography, the band says they have been inspired by romanticism (not the time period) and horror flicks, among other things. This video looks like the fruit of all of those influences combined and the photography is really well done, yet it left me more creeped out and disturbed than anything, specifically because of the gendered violence implied. I appreciate good horror, but for me, it’s more of a miss than a hit.
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