By contributing writer Chris Ward
Valeria (Natalia Solián) is a young woman trying to start a family with her husband Raúl (Alfonso Dosal). After visiting Monumental de la Virgen De Guadalupe – a large statue in Chalma, Mexico, sculpted in 2017 by artist Víctor Gutiérrez – with her mother and her aunt, Valeria discovers that she is pregnant, so the happy parents-to-be begin to plan for the arrival of the new baby.
However, after witnessing one of her neighbours jumping from their balcony and smashing their bones on the road below, Valeria starts to see various faceless people with distorted limbs in and around her apartment. Initially putting it down to stress and malnutrition, she begins to experience various disruptions during the pregnancy, including a sordid lesbian affair with an old flame, a babysitting incident involving her sister’s children and a fire in the baby’s new cot, but as her visions start to get more real, Valeria discovers that motherhood may not be the joyous event she thought it would be.
Huesera: The Bone Woman is one of those psychological horror movies where everything is a metaphor, probably with several interpretations, and is not to be taken literally. So far, so very modern horror, but for her debut director Michelle Garza Cervera has crafted a movie so meticulously put together that every shot is an important part of the story, with not a frame wasted, and we, the audience, are going to get more out of it than just jump scares and one or two gratuitous body horror shots.
Essentially, the movie is exploring the darker side of motherhood – the bits they don’t tell you about in antenatal classes – where not only is your body going to change but so are your perceptions, your feelings and, in extreme cases such as this, your whole persona. Natalia Solián gives an incredibly strong performance as Valeria, a character caught between wanting a certain future, until she is given it, and then trying to relive the past to escape it. In her youth she was a punk, and through flashback we see her with her girlfriend Octavia, living a carefree life as young, anti-authoritarian youths do, only to come back to the present where her grown-up self is doing the things expected of young adults once they’ve supposedly gotten through their rebellious phase.
We get to hear stories of Valeria’s past, mostly from her sister who delights in putting Valeria down in front of their family, and this simmering hostility is manifested when Valeria offers to babysit her young niece and nephew. Valeria is already having problems disciplining the children, and when she has a vision of a deformed intruder in the house she goes into panic mode, grabbing the already distraught children and acting maniacally, thinking she is doing the right thing by protecting them. You can see where this particular plot thread is heading whilst it is happening, because Huesera: The Bone Woman is not a movie that breaks any new ground with its metaphors, but it plants little seeds along the way to make the whole more effective.
The heart of Huesera: The Bone Woman is a psychological profile of a woman going through physical and emotional changes that don’t always connect to her needs, and Michelle Garza Cervera frames this with a body horror approach where we get to see bones breaking and protruding from the skin, but curiously we don’t get to see much of Valeria’s swollen belly or the birth itself – no doubt if this had been made by, say, David Cronenberg we would have seen all sorts of bodily fluids accompanying deformed flesh – and whilst these images are unsettling in themselves, the sound of cracking bones accompanying them is just as – or even more – disgusting. But there is also the suggestion of possession, and by the final act we get to experience the folk/occult angle that had been present throughout – and represented by Valeria’s childless aunt (and that detail is important) – making the climax of the movie more potent than most movies of this ilk, throwing a disturbing red herring into the mix before Valeria’s ultimate – and inevitable – fate is revealed.
This limited edition Blu-ray comes with an audio commentary by film critic Kat Ellinger and video essay by critic Anton Bitel, both of which are worth absorbing to heighten your enjoyment, although it is recommended to watch the movie on its own first. Arrow have also included a collector’s booklet featuring essays by Kat Hughes and there is exclusive artwork by Colin Murdoch, so it isn’t a loaded package, but what is included is definitely valuable to the viewing experience.
Overall, Huesera: The Bone Woman is a very interesting movie in that it isn’t particularly original – anyone who has kept up with the psychological/folk/body horror-for-metaphors movies that mainstream Hollywood and the streaming services have been consistently knocking out for the past few years will be very familiar with its narrative structure and uses of horrific imagery – but it is put together in a way that subsequent viewings will bring more and more out of it. Yes, the metaphors are obvious and do hit you over the head a bit, but the movie looks fantastic, features committed and daring performances and is so obviously a labour of love from the director that it never feels like a chore to sit through, because there are no cynical cash grabs at work here. This is art, and how joyous it is to watch it work as well as it does here.
Huesera: The Bone Woman is available to pre-order from Arrow now.