FrightFest ’25: Where is Juan Moctezuma

Juan F. Moctezuma II might be the only filmmaker who ever cost Roger Corman money. According to filmmaker and Moctezuma scholar Alaric S. Rocha, Corman financed the filmmaker’s final masterwork, but the Mexican auteur disappeared with all the film and negatives, never to be heard from again. It is hard to believe Corman could get played like that, so maybe that’s our first clue something Andy Kaufman-ish is going on in this documentary (should that be in quotes?). Either way, Rocha provides an affection tribute to Mexican macabre cinema in Where is Juan Moctezuma, which world premiered at FrightFest 2025.

Juan F. Moctezuma II is not Juan Lopez Moctezuma, who directed several horror films and had producer roles on two Jodorowsky films, but they share remarkably similar career arcs. However, Rocha’s Moctezuma now remains shrouded in mystery after disappearing with 1,000 Paths of Death, a sort of supernatural riff on The Searchers that Corman paid for (seriously, do you believe the King of the B’s would let that happen?).

Regardless, Moctezuma cuts a swath through every Mexican genre tradition, including Aztec folk horror and 1960s leftwing protest allegories. He too worked on Jodorowsky’s first two Mexican productions, just like his near-namesake.  Along the way, he earned a fitting nemesis, The Scorpion, the luchador who married Moctezuma’s muse. In fact, many of his films were deliberately conceived as gambits to win her heart back.

Fantasia ’25: I am Frankelda

Forget all the Freudian baloney. Nightmares don’t come from the dreamer’s subconscious. They are written in a parallel dream realm. Communication between the two dimensions should only flow one way, from the nightmare world into our dreams. However, a young prince from the dark fantastical kingdom finds himself compulsively drawn towards an extraordinarily creative orphan mortal in Arturo & Roy Ambriz’s I am Frankelda, the first Mexican-produced stop-motion animated film, which had its North American premiere at the 2025 Fantasia International Film Festival.

If you were curious about the backstories of Frankelda and her flying book in HBO Max’s Frankelda’s Book of Spooks then wonder no more. Eventually, Frankelda became the Mary Shelly of 19^th Century Mexico, only much more prolific. This is her origin story, flashing back to her sorrowful youth. As a recent orphan, Francesca Imelda’s only solace came from crafting frightful yarns. They were so eerie, they attracted the attention of Prince Herneval, the dream world’s heir apparent.

Frankly, they need her stories. The nightmare dimension is stuck in a deep malaise, unable to generate the kind of healthy fright-based energy they need from the human world’s response to the nightmares they send through the membrane-like transmission system. When Herneval ushers Francesca-not-yet-Frankelda into his world, his ailing royal parents extend her a warm welcome. However, the royal nightmare-writer Procustes immediately sees her a potential threat. He also recognizes the quality of her stories, so he schemes to steal them, to fuel his palace coup.

Disappear Completely, Coming to Netflix

Like most people working in [tabloid] journalism, Santiago takes a flexible approach to ethics. He often bends the rules and bribes cops, but at least his news is not fake. The dead bodies he photographs really are dead, except for the most recent one. Nobody understands how the senator could still be alive in his condition, but Santiago will learn from hard experience in Luis Javier Henaine’s Disappear Completely, which starts streaming tomorrow on Netflix.

Even though Santiago takes lurid crime-scene photos, he sees himself as an artistic chronicler of urban decay, sort of in the tradition of Arthur “Weegee” Felig. He aspires to hold a proper gallery show, but his livelihood depends on his crass editor, who does not appreciate his talent. As a result, Santiago’s relationship with his girlfriend Macrela has suffered, even before his rather unenthused response to the news of her pregnancy.

He really should have stayed with her, rather than rushing to his next front-page crime scene. The responding cops assumed the prominent senator was already dead, since the rats had been eating him. Then he suddenly groans. At that moment, the startled Santiago snaps a partial, shadowy shot of something else in the room.

In the next few days, Santiago experiences seizures and strange dreams or visions. Slowly, he starts to lose his sense of taste and smell. His medical tests come back negative, but the discovery of some kind of cursed fetish leads him to seek more occultic help. According to the spiritualist, Santiago has been cursed to lose all five of his senses, at which point he will essentially succumb to nothingness, or, you know.

It turns out Mexican politics are really scary—and so is this film. It is an eerie, unsettling kind of fear rather than rip-and-slash terror. Frankly, Disappear Completely is one of the more accessible horror movies for non-fans. It is smart and moody, but the tension builds steadily, from decidedly occult circumstances.

Death’s Roulette, on Paramount+

Compared to the shadowy host who abducted these seven people, U.N. Owen was a model of hospitality in And Then There Were None. At least he was decent enough to murder his guests himself. This unwelcoming mastermind expects them to do it for him. They must choose a victim to kill amongst themselves, but no volunteers, or else. Of course, it is never just one, is it? Clearly, the seven (mostly) strangers are in a heap of trouble in Manolo Cardona’s Death’s Roulette, which is now streaming on Paramount+.

Simon is a cop. Armando is a doctor. Teresa is a flight attendant and Jose is a retiree. As far as they know, they share no connection to Esteban, a powerful industrial, his entitled wife Marta, or their rebellious tree-hugger daughter Lupe. Nevertheless, all seven wake-up groggy, trapped in a drawing room worthy of Clue, over-looking the ocean. Via an old-timey teletype machine, the unseen host explains the rules. They need to chose a victim. Nobody can offer themselves as a sacrifice, but once the decision is made, the “lottery-winner” must willingly accept his or her fate. If no choice is made, he will kill them all.

The shadowy puppet master has two very lethal lackeys to enforce the rules, as the not-so-magnificent seven quickly learn. He obviously means business, so the guests try to quickly figure out what they have in common, while literally debating the life-and-death issue at-hand.

Admittedly, Death’s Roulette is like a lot of other Christie rip-offs and revenge thrillers, but screenwriters Gavo Amiel, Frank Ariza, and Julieta Steinberg come up with enough fresh wrinkles to keep it interesting. Thesp-director Cardona nicely capitalizes on the claustrophobic setting and atmospheric trappings. This film straddles genre borders, but it probably leans more towards mystery-thriller than horror.

Mirando al Cielo, More Faith from Fathom

Jose Sanchez del Rio is a saint for all Catholics. He was venerated by Pope John Paul II, beautified by Pope Benedict XVI, and canonized by Francis (presumably with the permission of his master, Xi Jinping). The fourteen-year-old saint would be the first to protest the current Pope’s subservient deal with the CCP, because he was martyred refusing to recant his faith under the Mexican Federales’ torture. Screenwriter-director Antonio Pelaez’s dramatically chronicles the short life and holy passion of Saint Jose in Mirando al Cielo, which has a special one-night screening this Tuesday, via Fathom Events.

Since the not-yet-Saint Jose’s two older brothers joined the Cristero Revolution for religious liberty, against the Calles regime, his parents were reluctant to let their youngest follow their example. However, the just-barely-teenager was determined to defend his faith—and thereby earn his place in heaven. In a twist worthy of classical tragedy, it was his “godfather,” Rafael Picazo Sanchez, the local Federal boss, who will send him there, as we see in flashbacks during corrupt official’s unlikely confession.

None of this is really spoilery, because Pelaez clearly conceived Mirando al Cielo as a passion play. Different standards of narrative story-telling and characterization will apply, regardless if secular heathens like it or not. Yet, no amount dramatic realism will change the fact Saint Jose was tortured to death by the leftist Calles regime, because of his unwavering Catholic faith.

So, this film is a cinematic passion play, but it is also a high-quality period production. Pelaez and cinematographer Wolf Parra take full advantage of some striking locations and they get the most out of their “heavenly” lighting techniques. Mirando al Cielo translates to “Looking at Heaven,” which clearly inspired their visual approach.

Shudder Exclusive: Belzebuth

Mexico is a very Catholic country, but also one that is plagued with violence. There are plenty of fears and anxieties rattling around their national collective subconscious. However, the shocking crimes Det. Emmanuel Ritter will investigate are far worse than anything committed by the cartels. Things get downright satanic in Emilio Portes’s Belzebuth, which premieres today, exclusively on Shudder.

Ritter’s involvement in this whole evil affair began when his family was the victim of an unspeakable atrocity. He is still haunted by the death of new-born infant son, who was mercilessly bludgeoned by a nurse, along with the rest of the maternity ward. Of course, we can guess she was in fact possessed by a demon, because we are watching Belzebuth on Shudder. Five years later, the bitterly widowed Ritter is called to investigate the mass murder-suicide of an elementary school class. Although it seems open and shut, Ivan Franco, a Vatican-trained FBI pathologist soon finds links between the school massacre and the hospital infanticide, as well as a subsequent case of mass murder at a public swimming pool.

Initially, Ritter scoffs at the supernatural, but he soon sees some freaky things he cannot dismiss. He also starts pursuing Father Vasilio Canetti, an excommunicated priest rumored to conduct black masses. Both his spooky facial tattoos and eye witness accounts placing him at the scene of the crimes a few days prior make the defrocked Father a highly suspicious person-of-interest. However, Ritter and Franco will have to contend with genuinely demonic perils when they discover the true purpose of the horrific crimes.

It is hard to believe Portes was previously known primarily as a director of comedies. Even though his debut, Meet the Head of Juan Perez, had some morbid elements, it is still a world removed from the soul-choking tension of Belzebuth. Frankly, this film is terrifying. The public atrocities it depicts might be too much for some viewers, especially in light of real-life tragedies, but the tone is never exploitative. Instead, it considers issues of good and evil with all due seriousness and urgency.

Father Canetti is also one of the most intriguing and unsettling horror movie characters of the decade. Tobin Bell (best known as Jigsaw in the Saw franchise) will make your blood run cold and your head spin before upending all your assumptions with his unforgettable performance. Frankly, his work as Canetti is a prime example of why there is a need for more prominent horror movie awards.

Joaquin Cosio is almost as memorable portraying Ritter, covering a considerable emotional spectrum, under extreme circumstances. He also develops some solid cop-buddy chemistry with his long-suffering partner Demetrio, nicely played by Jose Sefami. Tate Ellington rounds out the strong ensemble, handling all the investigative and religious business quite convincingly as the virtuous Franco.

It is hard to scoff at the term “Satanic Panic” after watching Belzebuth. It is worth repeating: this is a very scary film. Highly recommended for fans of supernatural horror, Belzebuth starts streaming today (8/29), exclusively on Shudder.

Neighboring Scenes ‘19: Buy Me a Gun

Gaze into the near future of Mexico, when drug cartels will control every aspect of life. Call it ninety minutes from now. Most average people have fled, leaving a depopulated economic wasteland in their wake. The country is unlikely to rejuvenate itself, because the cartels make it their business to search out and abduct young girls. “Huck,” as she calls herself, has eluded their grasp by passing for a boy, but her luck is about to run out in Julio Hernandez Cordon’s Buy Me a Gun, which screens during this year’s Neighboring Scenes: New Latin American Cinema.

Life is surreal for Huck, mostly in a bad way. Her junkie father Rogelio ekes out a living as the caretaker of a decrepit baseball field in the middle of the desert that caters to the cartel game-nights. What little he earns, he mostly turns back over to the cartel for drugs. However, he is acutely responsible when it comes to Huck, whose hair he cuts short to appear boyish. He also keeps her ankle shackled to a lead to prevent any grab-and-go attempts.

Unfortunately, Huck does not seem to fully appreciate the gravity of her situation, even though she should. She has heard no end of horror stories from the gang of orphans living rough in the brush surrounding the baseball field. Although Rogelio is cagey on the details, Huck still understands to some extent the cartel is responsible for the disappearance of her mother and her older sister. Nevertheless, her carelessness will bring down a lot of trouble on Huck and Rogelio.

Watching Buy Me a Gun leads to even greater respect for Issa Lopez’s Tigers are not Afraid, because she so effortless created a fable-like vibe, whereas Cordon’s flights into fantastical symbolism are exhaustingly laborious. In fact, the awkward attempts at Huck Finn allegorical parallels becomes altogether baffling late in the third act (there is indeed a raft, but Huck’s companion is a far cry from Jim, the escaped slave in Twain’s novel.

Admittedly, there are some tense moments in Gun, but any film that honestly depicts pervasive and arbitrary nature of cartel violence in Mexico will be unsettling. Huck is a realistically flawed character and young Matilde Hernandez Guinea shows both sensitivity and disciplined reserve beyond her years as Huck, but the character can be her own worse enemy, which becomes ever-more frustrating over time.

Cordon offers up no shortage of cartel violence and half-baked literary allusions, including the nearly feral pack of children, who are like the Lost Boys from Peter Pan, by way of Lord of the Flies. Yet, it mostly feels derivative coming after Tigers and the original Miss Bala, just to name a few examples. Painfully earnest but ultimately rather flat, Buy Me a Gun screens this Saturday (2/23) at the Walter Reade, as part of Neighboring Scenes.

Silencio: It Came from the Zone of Silence

How is it possible the original In Search of overlooked Mexico’s Mapimí Silent Zone (a.k.a. “The Zone of Silence”)—and yet it did. However, that left the door wide open for others to exploit the bizarre real-world phenomenon in conspiracy-driven science fiction. Director-screenwriter Lorena Villarreal takes us into the Zone and back in Silencio (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

This much is true: The Zone lies roughly on the same latitude as the Bermuda Triangle and has been a magnet for meteors. In the 1970s, a US Air Force test missile landed there after veering wildly astray. That is the jumping off point for Villarreal’s fantastical fiction. Ana’s grandfather James was one of the scientists working on the recovery mission. He and his protégé Peter chanced upon a cobalt Macguffin that whisks them back to the accident site where James’ daughter and granddaughters were killed several days earlier. Thanks to his inexplicable presence, James manages to save Ana, but at a considerable price.

Back in the present day, Ana’s grandfather is mostly lost inside his dementia-plagued head. However, he suddenly snaps out of it at 3:33 AM, for complicated reasons involving the stone, a conspiracy to recover it, and the visions of Ana’s patient Daniel, who claims (evidently with justification) that he can talk to the dead. Unfortunately, Grandpa James starts to slip back into his shell before he can remove the stone from its hiding place, which will put Ana in an awkward position.

In terms of its internal logic, Villarreal’s narrative does not hold enough water to nourish the smallest cactus in the Zone of Silence. On the other hand, she has a nice touch with characterization. The relationship between Ana and her grandfather is well-drawn and endearing. Unfortunately, the revelation of the secret bad guy comes as absolutely no surprise, given the limited cast of characters. Yet, she still maintains everyone’s humanity across the board, in intriguing ways, even after the big reveal.

John Noble and Rupert Graves (Lestrade in the Cumberbatch Sherlock) are both terrific as Grandfather James and modern-day Peter. Likewise, Melina Matthews and Michel Chauvet develop a strong rapport as Ana and Daniel, which even evolves into romantic interest, because at a certain point, the doctor-patient relationship is the least of everyone’s concern.

Villarreal helms with a sensitive touch, getting some nicely turned performances from her small ensemble and mostly (but not entirely) powering through viewer disbelief. However, further revisions and polishing of the script would have led to a much smoother ride for the audience. It is admittedly flawed, but there is some good work in there that deserves acknowledgment. It is far from a slam dunk, but it shows tons of promise for Villarreal and company. Recommended for supporters of Mexican indie cinema (particularly in genre varieties), Silencio opens today (10/26) in New York, at AMC Loews 34^th Street.

Museo: The Great Mexico City Art Heist

Frankly, it is not hard to fathom how a couple of amateur thieves managed to walk off with a spectacular haul of Pre-Columbian art from the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. The alarm had been broken for three years and the guards also happened to be drunk. Alonso Ruizpalacios largely lets the museum staff off the hook in his free interpretation of the 1985 Christmas Eve heist. He also choses to skip over the thieves’ connection to narcotics traffickers. However, the perps really were slacker veterinary students—that much is true in Ruizpalacios’s fabulistic Museo (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Museo is the sort of film that warns us through voice-overs right from the start that what we are about to witness will be filtered through the narrators’ lies and biases—and it will revisit that theme again just before the moment of truth. For the time being, we watch Juan Nuñez get the germ of the idea while working a crummy summer job at the museum and subsequently refine his scheme while he and his best pal Benjamin Wilson are aimlessly scuffling.

Due to an accelerated renovation schedule, Nuñez and the reluctant Wilson must carry out their plans on Christmas Eve, but that turns into a blessing in disguise. However, it forces Wilson to leave his ailing father during what will presumably be his final Christmas, introducing a continuing source of tension that threatens to divide the friends during their misadventures. Ironically, stealing the priceless artifacts turns out to be the easier part. Fencing the hotter than hot goods is far trickier. However, Nuñez knows a guy in Palenque who knows a guy in Acapulco. Along the way, Nuñez will also meet his great movie lust, Sherezada, an analog for Mexican sex symbol-starlet Princesa Yamal, who was implicated in the 1985 robbery.

Usually, when films alter history it is for the sake of punching up the drama, but Ruizpalacios and co-screenwriter Manuel Alcala do the opposite, covering up all the really seedy and lurid parts (full story here). The absence of the drug and antiquity trafficking ring the real-life Carlos Percher Trevino became associated with is a conspicuous white-washing of history.

On the other hand, Ruizpalacios builds considerably more tension during the big heist sequence than probably the case for Percher and his accomplice, Ramon Sardina Garcia. In place of the wider criminal conspiracies, Ruizpalacios gives us a mediation on th Mexican national character and a rebuke of the prejudice often leveled at indigenous Mexican descendants, such as Wilson.

Gael Garcia Bernal is sufficiently petulant as the entitled Nuñez, but it is Leonardo Ortizgris who really connects as the loyal but conflicted Wilson. It is also great fun to watch Simon Russell Beale steal his scenes as the dodgy art collector, Frank Graves. However, the Museum is the real attraction in all its modernist glory. This was the first time the museum granted limited access, which Ruizpalacios shows it off nicely, from the plundered statues of Aztec gods to grand courtyard. The design team also seamlessly recreated the museum interiors for the extended heist sequence.

Even though it is a rather embarrassing incident for the museum to revisit, the film should spur an increase in tourist traffic. Museo starts out quite compellingly, but it gets lost in its own head for a while once it leaves Mexico City and its Satellite suburb. Ruizpalacios never promises us the truth, we get it, but there is still enough capery stuff to hold most viewers interest. Recommended on balance as an art-house art heist film, Museo opens this Friday (9/14) in New York, at the Angelika Film Center and the Landmark 57 West.

FrightFest ’18: Tigers Are Not Afraid

These are not Dickensian street urchins. They are the orphans of Mexico’s drug wars. They survive hand-to-mouth on the streets, constantly fleeing the victorious drug cartel of sadistic Satanists. Yeah, maybe building that wall doesn’t sound so bad anymore. Regardless, fairy tales do not get much darker than Issa Lopez’s Tigers Are Not Afraid (trailer here), which screens during this year’s FrightFest in the UK.

Estrella is on her own. Her school was closed indefinitely after getting riddled with bullets. Soon thereafter, her mother failed to come home one night. The implications are obvious in Estrella’s world, but she remains in denial for what seems like weeks. Eventually, hunger forces her to seek the company of a local gang of misfits, but their leader Shine is instinctively hostile to an older potential rival.

Nevertheless, she will earn her place in the pack when she apparently completes a rather daring task, but the truth is rather more complicated. Regardless, she inadvertently antagonizes the cartel affiliated with the local political boss, as a result. On top of that, Estrella also has weird visions—or perhaps they really are supernatural visitations.

Lopez loads up TANA heavy fairy tale symbolism involving princesses, tigers, serpents, protective chalk, and magical wishes. However, since there is so much quasi-magical realism going on in the margins, none of the individual elements feels excessive or over-wrought. You will rarely hear this here, but this is a case where more was more.

Frankly, it is pretty amazing how much Lopez pulled off on a presumably limited budget. At times, it all looks too self-contained to the brain, as if five or six cartel death cultists massacred the tens of thousands of people living in Estrella’s demilitarized zone of a neighborhood. Yet, the limited and interconnected cast of characters definitely feels apiece with the fairy tale vibe.

Lopez also gets fantastic work out of her young ensemble. Paola Lara is rock solid as the smart but frighteningly vulnerable Estrella. However, the revelatory standout is Juan Ramon Lopez, who is so intense as Shine, it is downright spooky. The various abandoned buildings and scarred urban backdrops also give the film quite a bit of sinister character. The mere fact that Lope had so many such locations available to her is terrifying in its own right.

So, maybe with drug wars raging in Mexico, this isn’t such a great time to abolish ICE after all—or maybe we can just replace it with magic chalk and wishes. These are not idle musings. Despite the fantastical elements, there is an undeniable urgency to TANA. If you want to understand a country’s dark collective subconscious, look at their genre films. In this case, Lopez dares viewers to confront Mexico’s lost generation of drug war orphans and the highly uncertain future they share with the nation. Yet, we still connect with these kids on an emotional level. Highly recommended, Tigers Are Not Afraid screens tonight (8/26), as part of this year’s FrightFest UK.

Sundance ’18: Time Share

In a town like Park City, the evils of time share sales require little explanation. Alas, poor Pedro could have used a good cautionary talking to. He paid the nominal membership fee and attended the sales seminar, just so he could reserve a villa at the Vistamar resort, for a highly discounted rate. However, the dodgy company double-booked their private pad. Much to Pedro’s dismay, they will be forced to cohabitate during their “healing” vacation in Sebastián Hoffman’s Time Share, which screens during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

If Time Share were a 1980s Hollywood comedy, the uptight Pedro might have been played by Tom Hanks and the slovenly but infinitely shrewder Abel could have been John Candy. Initially, they would have clashed, but eventually they would have teamed up to teach the nefarious resort company a lesson. This will not be that film. Instead, the reserved and somewhat snobbish Pedro starts to suspect Abel and his clan are deliberately trying to alienate him from his wife and son.

Frankly, it almost seems like Team Abel and the staff of the Vistamar, now renamed Everfields by the new American owners, are in cahoots. The only exception is Andres, a laundry worker increasingly estranged from his wife Gloria, an up-and-coming member of the sales team. Andres might be the only one more paranoid than Pedro, partly because he has recently gone off his meds. Still, that does not necessarily mean either man is wrong about the resort.

Time Share is not a horror film, but it rests uneasily in the zone of psychological extremity frequented by Polanski, Solondz, and Aronofsky at their indiest. The paranoia is definitely contagious. Unfortunately, Pedro is a problematically weak focal character and Luis Gerardo Méndez never fleshes him out to any great extent. Frankly, as soon as we meet him, we can’t wait to ditch him.

In contrast, Miguel Rodarte’s Andres is nearly as reserved, yet deeply unsettling and completely unpredictable, in a tightly wound sort of way. Yankee RJ Mitte is just as hard to shake playing Tom, a horrifyingly manipulative sales coach, who could pass for the sociopathic nephew of Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross.

Hoffman exhibits a masterful control of mood and foreboding, which is amplified by the ominous shine rendered by cinematographer Matias Penachino. He really makes the palatial resort look simultaneously seductive and sinister. Time Share will make viewers antsy in both good and bad ways, but there is no denying it is a distinctive piece of filmmaking. Recommended for those who appreciate dark psychological dramas, with a hint of the surreal, Time Share screens this Monday (1/22), Friday (1/26), and Saturday (1/27) in Park City, as well as tonight (1/21) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Brooklyn Horror ’17: 1974

In the 1970s, consumer 8mm was largely for A-V geeks. Most of them were not aspiring indie filmmakers. Instead, they used the format to document milestones, like weddings, graduations, and demonic possessions. Manuel (a man-child toy-maker) wants to capture his early days in a new house with his newlywed wife Altair, but he records some disturbing events when she falls under the influence of a mysterious force. She claims to be communing with angels, but that seems highly unlikely throughout Victor Dryere’s Mexican found footage 1974 (trailer here), which screens tonight during the 2017 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

Dryere really did shoot 1974 in 8mm and his cast sure look like they’re wearing polyester. The early 1970’s details are spot on, except for the appearance of a Rubik’s Cube (accurately called a “Wonder Cube,” as it was known at the time, but it did not break out with consumers until the awesome 80s). Whatever, at least it helps reassure us what we’re watching really isn’t real.

Sure, there are a few weird little things happening here and there, but Manuel doesn’t worry about them until a load of bricks and black paint mysteriously arrives at their doorstep. To his surprise, Altair starts using them to build a black door in their bedroom, because “the angels told her to.” As she becomes increasingly spacey, even her standoffish sister Tere grows concerned. Manuel’s stoner pal Callahan even moves into to somehow help, but a fat lot of good he’ll do.

Of course, we know it ends badly from the in media res prologue, featuring the baffled TV news report of the aftermath. Frankly, this is one of the few found footage films in recent years that looks totally credible. So many Blair Witch copy-cats cheat and cut corners, but this really looks like freaky events in 1974 that were caught on a crummy consumer 8mm camera. If just about any viewer saw a film like this in 1998 (pre-Blair) they would be easily convinced it was legit—and deeply disturbed by it.

Granted, the ending is completely insane, but Dryere still comes close to earning it. Although it features some relatively established cast-members (such as Diana Bovio playing Altair), 1974 is not a star-making kind of film. Instead, they mostly do their duty to blend into the yucky 1970s milieu, while Dryere films them from odd angles and in unflattering light. The results are indeed pretty scary. Recommended for horror fans attracted by the ‘70s setting, 1974 screens tonight (10/15) at the Wythe Hotel, as part of this year’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

Brooklyn Horror ’17: Veronica

When was the last time a psychologist actually helped a patient in any movie? Perhaps Arnaud Desplechin’s Jimmy P? And before that? David & Lisa maybe? Do not expect a lot of breakthroughs when a reclusive analyst reluctantly takes on a difficult patient. Instead, she should worry about surviving with her sanity in Carlos Algara & Alejandro Martinez-Beltran’s Veronica (trailer here), which screens tonight during the 2017 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

She might be a head-shrinker, but our unnamed psychologist still clearly wrestles with forms of agoraphobia and social anxiety. She continues to publish, but she no longer actively treats patients. Nonetheless, she cannot refuse her mentor when he refers a particularly hard case to her.

Veronica de la Serna has heard all the psycho-babble before and she takes perverse pleasure in spitting it back at the psychologist. Clearly, she has a great deal of anger and resentment. She also has sexual issues, which she recognizes in the psychologist, as well. After several rounds of testy verbal sparring, de la Serna focuses on her sexuality as her prime weapon for destabilizing the doctor. However, the shrink has a tool shed fully stocked with axes, chains, and sinister mushrooms.

Anyone who has seen their share of psych-you-out movies will probably guess the big old twist, but Algara & Martinez-Beltran execute it with great visual flair. Miguel Angel Gonzalez Avila’s stunning black-and-white cinematography has a Gregg Toland glow and the darkly ominous overtones of Dean Cundey’s work with John Carpenter. The good doctor’s lodge-cabin-villa is also a terrific horror movie location, making the Overlook in The Shining look conveniently subway accessible.

Olga Segura exudes danger and sexuality as the deeply threatening de la Serna. As the doctor, Arcelia Ramírez falls apart pretty spectacularly, while coyly maintaining her secrets. The two women play off each other quite well. Algara and Martinez-Beltran also keep them moving around the house and grounds at a sufficient clip to prevent a feeling of staginess from setting in.

Viewers of good conscience could debate whether Veronica really is a horror movie in the strictest sense or more of a psychological thriller. Either way, it is stylish and intense. Recommended for fans of dark mind-benders, Veronica screens tonight (10/13) at Video Revival and tomorrow (10/14) at Videology, as part of this year’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

Ripstein’s Time to Die

Eighteen years is a long prison stretch for killing someone in a fair gun duel, especially when the other party had been goading the unassuming but lethal Juan Sáyago for months. Of course, nobody ever said the Old West was fair, on either side of the border. The revolvers, horses, and saloons don’t lie—this is a western, but it happens to be a decidedly revisionist western, co-written by Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Fuentes. Sáyago has done his time, but his past won’t stay buried in Arturo Ripstein’s Time to Die (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Sáyago has returned home, but his old life is long gone. His mother is dead, his house is in ruins, and his intended, Mariana Sampedro was married and widowed in the time he was away. Technically, she is available again, but it is not practical for Sáyago to think that way about the bereaved mother of a small boy, at least not while the Trueba Brothers are out for revenge.

Their father had it coming, so Sáyago eventually gave it to him, but that is not how the Truebas see it. Eventually, the old timers start to talk some sense into the younger Pedro Trueba. He has a fiancée of his own he would like to start a life with, but his older brother Julián is a hard case.

Sounds like a classic Anthony Mann western, doesn’t it? For some reason, critics try not to use the “W” word to discuss Time to Die, using terms like “revenge drama” or “contemplation of machismo.” It is certainly both those things, as are many other westerns. Reportedly, Fuentes’ role was to Mexicanize García Márquez’s dialogue, but in terms of themes and characters, Time to Die is not so very different from classic brooding Hollywood westerns like High Noon and The Searchers. Yet, that is exactly the strength of Ripstein’s western. It is lean and mean and universal and archetypally elemental.

Jorge Martínez de Hoyos is terrific as Sáyago. He is either the schlubbiest hardnose or the steeliest sad sack ever. Mexican Golden Age movie star Marga López is wonderful tragic, but elegant as the widow who mourns more for the loss of her life with Sáyago. However, it is Enrique Rocha and Alfredo Leal who really give the film its electric intensity as the vengeance-warped Brothers Trueba.

Time to Die is the sort of film that redefines the word “fatalism.” We know exactly what destiny has in store for these characters just as much as they do, yet we are unable to turn away, just as they are powerless to alter their fates. Frankly, it is baffling Time to Die has yet to really find its following with fans of dark, revisionist westerns in the One-Eyed Jacks tradition, but that means it is ripe for rediscovery. Highly recommended for western fans and admirers of its literary screenwriters, Time to Die opens this Friday (9/15) in New York, at Film Forum.

Future Imperfect: The Year of the Plague

The doctor considers it a Crichton-esque super-virus. His musician-lover sees it more as the pent-up release of the masses’ accumulated physical and spiritual pestilence. Either way, it is a stretch to call this outbreak drama science fiction. Indeed, the impulse to sweep the mounting crisis under the rug is acutely human, in the worst way. The cover-up will be just as deadly as the disease in Felipe Cazals’ The Year of the Plague, which screens during MoMA’s ongoing film series, Future Imperfect: The Uncanny in Science Fiction.

It is odd Year of the Plague is not more frequently screened, because the screenplay was co-written by Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez (with José Agustín and Juan Arturo Brennan). Supposedly, it is based on Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, but it bears more of a likeness to Camus’s The Plague. Dr. Genovés is a senior attending physician at a leading Mexican university hospitality, who has no trouble recognizing the early stages of a plague from the fifty-some suspicious cases he has seen so far. However, his superiors and the government easily bury the plague victims amid the thousands of other people who died during the same time period due to more pedestrian urban pathologies. As a consolation, Genovés will commence an affair with a much younger and prettier aspiring musician.

Literally mountains of corpses start to pile up, but they know how to take care of that down there. When a Norwegian cabinet minister also succumbs to the plague, the government will recklessly and unethically send his body home with a deceptive congestive heart failure diagnosis and no environmental safeguards. Of course, he is the exception. Most of the plague’s victims simply don’t count for much.

Peste is an ultra-1970s-looking film, presented in a pseudo-documentary style, but with spare room here and there for dramatic character development. As a result, it is hard to forge an emotional connection with the film, even though it features several musical interludes. Yet, its retro-ness is also one of its greatest appeals. Frankly, watching polyester-wearing bureaucrats villainously scheme amid groovy office décor is always a cool nostalgia trip.

The docudrama approach necessarily hems in the cast, but Alejandro Parodi (bearing a vague resemblance to Mike “Touch” Connors) has the sort of presence you would want from your viral outbreak doctor. However, for Cazals and García Márquez, the real stars of the film are those dump trucks and mass graves overflowing with corpses.

Clearly, García Márquez was using the Plague as a metaphor for what he thought ailed society in the 1970s. It didn’t make much sense that his solution was to invest more power in centralized governments and further disenfranchise the individual as a political and economic free agent, but Latin American Leftism was never about logic. It was about faith in a secular god that failed. Year of the Plague is a strange time capsule from that overheated era, but its visuals and paranoid vibe still retain some potency for contemporary viewers. Worth checking out as a colorful product of its time, The Year of the Plague screens again tomorrow afternoon (8/13) at MoMA, as part of Future Imperfect.

We Are the Flesh: Mexican Extremity

Mariano is sort of a Mexican cross between Tool Time Tim Allen and the Marquis de Sade. He has no use for bourgeoisie morality, but he sure goes through the duct tape. Desperate siblings will be caught in his madness during Emiliano Rocha Minter’s nasty bit of extremity, We Are the Flesh (trailer here) which opens this Friday in New York.

It is hard to follow his futzing, but it appears Mariano is trying to turn a post-industrial loft into a womb-like lair, mostly through the liberal application of duct tape. Into this heart of darkness wander a waifish brother and sister in search of food. Of course, simple supplication will not suffice. Instead, Mariano will sink his hooks into the siblings, forcing them to commit incestuous sexual acts and to act as his accomplice in the ritual murder of a captured soldier.

Using language reminiscent of Sade’s puerile paeans to perversion, Mariano gains a Svengali-like hold over his guest, particularly the sister. He also dies and comes back during rave, because Rocha Minter will not spare us any symbolic provocations. To top things off, he delivers a twist ending that was a groaner when M Night Shyamalan used it in the mid-2000s.

There is no question Rocha Minter is a powerful visual stylist, but his desire to shock is often counterproductive. Any intended commentary on Mexican society is lost in the not-so simulated outrageousness. Still, you have to give the cast credit for so willingly shedding their clothes and their dignity, especially María Evoli, who really goes for broke as the sister. It is a bold performance and a bold career move, since she will have something that will probably be considered in the same general neighborhood of A Serbian Film on her resume.

So, we’re still building that wall, right? Suddenly, it doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. A lot of talent and effort went into Flesh, including Yollótl Alvarado’s dream-like cinematography and the off-the-wall work of art director Manuela García. That is why it is so frustrating the final film does not inspire more feeling than cold, clammy distaste. Not recommended, We Are the Flesh opens this Friday (1/20) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Ripstein’s Bleak Street

Skid Row looks mostly the same everywhere, but in Mexico City, you can also find down-on-their-luck luchador wrestlers. In the case of “Little Death” and “Little AK,” they are actually Mini-Estrella wrestlers, but do not call them midgets. They identify as Lilliputians. Unfortunately, they are based on real life Mini-Estrella murder victims Alejandro and Alberto Jiminez, so they are in for an abrupt end. At least they go out with their masks on in Arturo Ripstein’s Bleak Street (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday at Film Forum.

Little Death and Little AK do not even take their masks off when they are home with their long suffering, conventionally-sized wives. They act as the “shadows” of full sized luchadors, “Death” and “AK-47.” The AK’s have a good professional the relationship, but not the Deaths.

Life is tough on the Mini-Estrella circuit, but it is even harder for aging prostitutes like Adela and Dora. The former has largely given up on the sex trade, relying instead on her addled mother’s begging bowl. Dora still turns what tricks are available, but finds no love at home from her ingrate daughter or her closeted, transvestite husband. Hoping to get slightly ahead of the game, the sick and tired prostitutes plan to drug and rob the twin Minis when they are hired for their post-bout celebration. They used to roll clients all the time back in the day. Regrettably, they do not realize they need to make certain adjustments to their M.O.

Buñuel’s influence on Ripstein is immediately apparent in the first seconds of Bleak Street. It is also easy to deduce Ripstein’s influence on succeeding generations of Mexican filmmakers, like del Toro, Reygadas, and Plá. This is some dark stuff. Although never scary per se, there is a pronounced element of grotesquery that runs straight through the center of the film. Heck, it might just make Rachel Maddow’s amen corner vote for Donald Trump.

Yet, Ripstein and his screenwriter wife Paz Alicia Garcíadiego are not merely sympathetic towards the wife-beating Mini-Estrellas and the predatory prostitutes. They are overflowing with darkly humanistic love for them. After all, they are all products of their environment—and their cul-de-sac of dashed hopes makes the Dead End Bowery look like Rodeo Drive.

Even though we never see them unmasked, Juan Francisco Longoria and Guillermo López give remarkably physical performances as the Mini-Estrellas. Likewise, Patricia Reyes Spíndola and Nora Velázquez are painfully exposed as the aging street walkers. It is like Ripstein peels back layers of their dignity like an onion, only to find more perseverance beneath.

Somehow, Alejandro Cantú’s black-and-white cinematography makes the ugliness of human nature look absolutely gorgeous. It might sound like a Mexican John Waters film, but it has a closer kinship with the work of Fellini and even Bergman. It is not for all tastes, but it is a major late career auteurist statement from Ripstein, which in its way, is quite invigorating. Recommended for those who appreciate the bizarre and the naturalistic, Bleak Street opens this Wednesday (1/20) in New York at Film Forum.

Philip K. Dick ’16: The Incident

That copy of Philip K. Dick’s Time Out of Joint could come in handy for Carlos. While his situation is somewhat different, it could help him think about reality in more outside-the-box terms (it also made his film a perfect selection for this year’s Philip K. Dick Film Festival). At the very least, it will help pass the time. Rather than a box or a Potemkin world, Carlos is stuck in an infinite staircase. He is not the only one facing such a predicament in Isaac Ezban’s The Incident (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Philip K. Dick Film Festival in New York.

The corrupt cop was leading Carlos and his brother Oliver out through his building’s staircase when they heard the bang. At that point, the stairs became endless Escher loop. They walk down nine flights and find themselves right back at the ninth floor landing. Needless to say, the doors are sealed, but the vending machine mysteriously keeps replenishing itself. The situation would be dire enough, but the copper, acting on a perverse impulse, shot Oliver in the leg right before the happening. Soon the festering wound becomes life-threatening.

Meanwhile or something, Daniel is on a road trip with his mother, her trying too hard boyfriend, and his little sister, but that highway never seems to end—because it won’t. There is an empty service station that never runs out of supplies, but they do not carry asthma inhalers. Unfortunately, Daniel’s sister will be needing one after hers is damaged. These two cosmically closed loops do not appear to be related, except for the occasional hint suggesting they really are.

There are no significant visual effects to speak of in The Incident, but it is a wildly ambitious, decade-spanning, mind-reeling genre film. It starts out merely unsettling in a Sartre kind of way, but it turns into a deeper, metaphysical horror show. Reportedly, some fans of the show Lost find various hat-tips throughout the film. Whether they are intentional or not, The Incident is certainly in keeping with the show’s spirit (whereas it is wholly dissimilar from M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening).

Considering the circumstances, The Incident boasts a surprisingly large cast. Nobody really stands out per se, because the entire ensemble is convincingly freaked out and then bitterly resigned to their fate. Essentially, they look like real people in some kind of Hell (but it isn’t really, or is it?).

Ezban tries to connect too many dots in the third act, but that is a rather valiant mistake. Regardless, he announces himself as a major new talent with The Incident, while also providing a heck of a calling card for his design team. This is a painstakingly crafted film that masterfully controls what the audience sees and the temporary assumptions they form. Pretty impressive stuff, recommended for fans of Lost and David Lynch’s better mind-trips, The Incident screens this Friday (1/15) at the Cinema Village, as part of this year’s Philip K. Dick Film Festival.

Neighboring Scenes ’16: A Monster with a Thousand Heads

Sonia Bonet’s family is a real risk-pool buster. Sure, her husband’s experimental treatment is easy enough to disallow, but her resulting crime spree is harder to sweep under the rug. Their lucky son Dario gets to witness it all in Rodrigo Plá’s A Monster with a Thousand Heads (trailer here), which screens during the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Neighboring Scenes: New Latin American Cinema film series.

Plá and screenwriter (wife) Laura Santullo do not waste time with a lot of medical rigmarole. Sonia’s husband Guillermo is dying of something, but a radical new treatment caused measurable improvement. However, they had to mortgage their home for the first round of narrative widgets. To continue, they need their insurance company, Alta Salud, to reverse its decision. Unfortunately, Guillermo is relapsing rather badly. Desperate for help, Bonet camps out waiting for his doctor at the corporate headquarters, which makes Alta Salud look more like a managed care conglomerate. Of course, Dr. Villalba and the front office staff give her the run-around so Bonet follows him home, taking the doctor and his wife hostage in a half-planned act of madness.

Thanks to the sympathetic Mrs. Villalba’s information, Bonet heads off to the racquet to target the company president and HR director (who really shouldn’t have anything to do with customer coverage issues). The old president is a pretty cool cucumber, but the slimy HR hack makes a lunge for Bonet’s, taking one in the leg as a result. That should basically seal Bonet’s fate, as we can gather from the suspense-killing flashforwards to her criminal trial, but she still has an extended dance to play out with Alta Salud’s morally ambiguous president.

Plá and Santullo made a big international splash with the class conscious La Zona (The Zone), which had its excesses, but still manages to pull viewers through at a brisk gallop. While Monster shares surface similarities, it lacks the best known collaboration’s super slickness—and it is rather missed. In a way, Monster manages to be half-pregnant most of the time, wagging its finger at insurance/managed care companies at what they have reduced Bonet to, but it never lets her cut loose like an Uwe Boll leftist vengeance-taker.

Jana Rulay is convincingly frantic and frayed as Bonet. Plá forces her to walk a precarious tightrope with righteousness on one side and full blown psychosis on the other, but she largely pulls it off. Arguably, Emilio Echeverria’s performance as the president is either the film’s greatest strength or weakness. It is a surprisingly subtle, nuanced turn that makes it difficult to demonize the old goat. That would be problematic if Monster were a true revenge thriller, but Plá is not about providing vicarious satisfaction.

Monster is so frustrating, because there is so much visceral energy in individual scenes, yet it does so much to undermine its overall impact. Plá is a filmmaker worth following, but La Zona remains his most successful politically charged thriller to date. Primarily for those looking to applaud its message, Monster with a Thousand Heads screens this Saturday night (1/9) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s Neighboring Scenes film series.

Mexico Barbaro: Eight Filmmakers, One Country

The country that gave us the Day of the Dead, Narcoterrorism, and Lucho Libre wrestling must have some pretty strange stuff rattling around in its national subconscious. However, perhaps as a sign of violent times, most of the monsters portrayed in a new Mexican horror movie anthology are of a decidedly human variety. The muck-raking John Kenneth Turner would probably be horrified by the world depicted in the omnibus film bearing the name of his 1908 pre-revolutionary expose, but horror fans will be more troubled by the inconsistency of Mexico Barbaro (trailer here), which releases today on DVD and VOD.

There is no effort to link the eight stories, beyond their south of the border setting, so each can easily be considered discretely. In a way, Laurette Flores Bornn’s Tzompantli is the most frustrating, because it starts with enormous promise. Speaking from the vantage point of decades gone by, a crusty old journalist remembers the story that scarred him for life. Through an informant, he uncovered information linking a drug cartel to a series of ritual murders intended to be sacrifices to the ancient Aztec gods. It is especially unnerving, because it probably more or less true to life. Unfortunately, Bornn ends it prematurely, cutting down what could easily sustain feature-length treatment into a mere sketch.

Edgar Nito’s Jaral de Berrios might be the strongest installment and also the most distinctly Mexican in flavor. A bandit and his wounded partner take refuge in a notoriously haunted villa, with predictably macabre results. It is a wildly cinematic location, beautifully shot by cinematographer Juan Pablo Ramírez.

Aaron Soto’s Drain is possibly the most defiantly insane installment. Whether it is a story of supernatural terror or psychotic madness is anyone’s guess, but the takeaway is clear: if you find a suspicious looking joint near a dead body, don’t smoke it.

Isaac Ezban is one of the two marquee names attached to Barbaro, but his That Precious Thing is likely to be the most divisive constituent film. Frankly, the things that befall the young woman and her older, morally suspect lover are absolutely appalling, but the wildly grotesque creature effects almost turn it into a gross-out cartoon. This one is not for the faint of heart or easily offended.

Lex Ortega’s It’s What’s Inside That Matters is probably even more disturbing, but it offers no black humor the soften the blow. Frankly, it is way, way too gory, considering the victim in question is a young child.

Jorge Michel Grau’s Dolls is also rather tough stuff, but at least the We Are What We Are helmer executes it with some style. Still, it is not exactly what you would call a fun film. Next, Ulises Guzman reconnects with folkloric subject matter in Seven Times Seven, but despite the short format, his narrative still manages to get confused and murky.

At least Barbaro ends on a high note with Gigi Saul Guerrero’s Day of the Dead. In strip club that will remind some viewers of the establishment in From Dusk Till Dawn, Guerrero manages to pull off a nifty spot of misdirection. In this case, the resulting carnage is rather satisfying.

There are some good segments in Barbaro, but also some real ugliness. It is the kind of film that the fast-forward button can help make more palatable. The contributions of Nito and Guerrero are definitely worth seeing separately if the opportunity arises, but the whole ball of wax is only recommended for hardcore horror fans when Mexico Barbaro releases today on DVD, from Dark Sky Films.