Fantasia 2024: Párvulos

To some extent, Párvulos suffers by its promotional material, which seems to promise something mysterious and dark, swirling ominously in the washed-out, arthouse colour palette which we saw in the first stills. In truth, and beyond that muted colour palette, the film is nothing like that. In fact, arthouse, in terms of theme and approach – is one thing which the film leaves out. Its influences, whilst no doubt selected with love and care by horror fan and director Isaac Ezban, jumble together rather awkwardly, because there’s just so much in there, as if this is the sole chance to honour them all. This leads to an overly long, tonally awkward grab-bag of horror types, tropes and plot points which don’t blend well. It’s a shame, and although all of this doesn’t completely detract from the fine set of performances from the young actors in the film, it does dilute the overall impact.

The film starts as it means to go on, blending lofty truisms about nature and the importance of ‘family’ (nota bene) as a natural constant, with an introduction to how three apparently parentless brothers are living in a post-apocalyptic setting – ickily, that’s how. Remember the saying that little boys are made of ‘slugs and snails and puppy dog tails’? That’s not far off here. I mean, why catch fish with the copious amount of worms you have, when you can make a worm (and honey!) smoothie instead? Why wouldn’t you eat a pet frog? Skin a dog? And so on; you get the picture.

The boys, with eldest brother Salvador (Farid Escalante Correa) keeping them all in check, are eking out an existence, apparently waiting for their parents to come home. As if all of this wasn’t strange enough, there’s something in the cellar which is being kept a secret from the baby of the family, Benjamin (Mateo Ortega Casillas) – something, or can we say someone, which the other brothers go down to feed. This secret is kept from the audience too for a little while, but after spending some more time watching the boys foraging for the absolute worst food you can imagine, making mistakes out in the wild, and noting some eyebrow-raising, post-pandemic inspired reveals about what brought the world to this state, we discover what’s down there. Little Benjamin is very surprised; some, shall we say, more jaded viewers may not be.

So, by around forty minutes in, we may be wondering where we go from here, given the film runs to two hours altogether. We know what’s in the basement, why the boys are providing food, what’s happened in the world outside, and why things are so complicated. The film has been, thus far, grotty, grimy and unpleasant, just as all post-apocalyptic films are; there’s always someone holed up in a house not their own, hoping for the powers-that-be to come through whilst hiding from the worst dregs of humanity who are always, inevitably, out there somehow. It could have carried on along these lines; countless films have, and some very successfully.

However, the film’s sudden lurch into a much lighter, even comedic tone is a genuine surprise, calling to mind different titles in the grab bag, particularly Braindead (Dead Alive), as some of the scenes and gags are similar. But unless this is going to turn into (and look away now if you don’t want to know the nature of the monsters being mentioned) My Pet Zombie, then what?

As it turns out, the arrival of an outsider – ah! – complicates things, even if briefly, and this means dropping the comedic tone quite sharply in order to turn the film instead into a much gorier, and once more, a much darker one. Leaving aside quibbles about the way in which the outsider character gets treated in the script – the inclusion of sex in the film definitely raises an eyebrow, too – here we can see Day of the Dead rising highest in the mix, melding together the same ‘zombies who remember’ idea with an almost identical gore scene, one which has long seemed irresistible to indie horror filmmakers – yes, that one. But then again, we’re still focused on some kids surviving against steep odds – the film’s title literally means ‘toddlers’ – and the ‘plucky kid’ interludes feel like a difficult sell now, too, especially when we’ve moved onto people getting literally splattered with guts. This level of disaster didn’t even happen in Lord of the Flies (another likely influence). Again – where do we go next?

It’s not until the last fifteen minutes or so that the film tries hard to resolve these questions and issues, but in so doing, it has to briefly introduce other, ideological ideas which cannot by this point be granted the time to really develop, meaning some rather squashed final exposition (even if replete with an appearance by the fierce Noé Hernández). Essentially, things change, change, and change again here, but always feel overly familiar as they do, even if these familiar aspects wouldn’t ordinarily occur in one project.

At its weakest moments, Párvulos feels sadly scatty, diffuse and derivative. It’s just so giddy with ambition that it suffers for it, and it pains me to come away feeling quite as frustrated by the film as I do, but hey, thus far I’m in the minority: other reviewers have praised its vision and ethos, and had no issues with its tone or content at all. See it and decide for yourselves; it’s certainly worth that.

Párvulos (2024) appeared as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.