Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec God of the Dead and page upon page of Aztec art depicting his historical ritual appeasement dominate the first minutes of Mexican director Mauricio Chernovetzky’s Sacrificios (2025), a study of Mexican religion, grief, fatherhood and guilt. After lingering across various drawings and sculpture, the camera pulls back to reveal a small boy, […]
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 […]
Hell’s teeth – quite literally, as it happens; two competitions in one week? Well, lucky you, as we also have a copy of Belzebuth to give away. For fans of Mexican horror (which always seems to be ramped up to a level that evades non-Mexican horror), Belzebuth melds the tragedy of a school massacre with […]
Possession horrors are almost always based around Catholic lore, and demons are dispensed with via Catholic means. But this, surely, isn’t the whole picture: other traditions and cultures must have their own spin on this kind of horror. Well, The Old Ways at least initially purports to provide a different spin on the genre; however […]
My experience of Mexican cinema tends towards the non-mainstream, admittedly, but even based on the little I do know, it seems that lurching straight into the strange and the bloody unreasonable is a niche national pastime. And so we come to Violent Delights a.k.a Beber de tu Sangre, which certainly starts as it means to […]
Review by Ben Bussey When a film is released to DVD almost eight years after it was made, it tends not to inspire a great deal of confidence. However, when said film has the names Robert Rodriguez, Carlos Gallardo and Harvey and Bob Weinstein attached, it also inspires at least a little curiosity. Such was […]
We Are What We Are (Somos lo que hay) (2010) Directed by: Jorge Michel Grau Distributors: IFC Films (US) Artificial Eye (UK) Release date: 12th November 2010 (UK) TBC 2011 (US) Starring: Paulina Gaitan, Alan Chávez, Francisco Barreiro, Carmen Beato Review by: Stephanie Scaife Jorge Michel Grau’s debut feature We Are What We Are is […]