“It Comes With Some Spice”: Why I Love Latin American Horror Films So Much
About a year ago, I was asked why I love Latin American horror films so much. It wasn’t something I’d really thought about. I initially started this journey in search of representation that was lacking in horror films from the United States at the time. But then, somewhere along the line, these films changed and radicalized me. I realized my answer. I love these films so much because Latin American horror comes with some spice.
There are many reasons why I gravitate to these films. One is because we share the same ancestral history. I can feel their themes running through my veins just like the revolutionary blood of Emiliano Zapata. We share a soil that was once untouched by invaders. And centuries later, after still feeling the consequences of colonization, Latin American horror films don’t hold back on being political and critiquing current problematic issues.
Critiquing Colonialism And Its Effects
Latin American horror films are extremely unapologetic. They display the ramifications and oppression set upon the people of the Americas. One of the more blatant examples of this is The Light on the Hill from Peru. This film uses genre tropes to speak up on how colorism comes into play when oppressing the Indigenous people and taking their land. The film portrays this with the two main white characters who are from Lima, the capital city of Peru. They navigate and manipulate the communities in a rural village and show no remorse when their exploitative tendencies arise.
Another example that depicts this, but uses the genre in a more lighthearted way, is Skull: The Mask. Genre tropes are also used in order to highlight how Portuguese conquistadors demonized Indigenous beliefs in order to control them. The spirit of Anhangá was once the protector of the jungle, but was turned into the Devil. This is why in the film, Anhangá overtakes the body of a worker. He does so in order to seek revenge on the Catholic religion imposed on the Indigenous people.
Brazilian cinema, and Latin American horror cinema in general, are no strangers when it comes to depicting religious vengeance and its critiques of it. Hell, Brazil’s first horror film, At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul, denounces all forms of religion with the introduction of Coffin Joe. This was in the 1960s when Brazil was on the brink of a dictatorship. The country was leaning towards a more god-fearing conservative ideology. This led director and actor Jose Majica Marins to use the horror genre to portray his atheist views and challenge the status quo.
Five decades later and the horror genre is still taking its time to critique traditional morals stemming from religion. In 2016, one of my favorite Mexican directors, Amat Escalante, released The Untamed. This horror drama tackles a huge societal issue within Mexico at the time: homophobia. The film stems from a real-life incident by reenacting the hate crime as the catalyst for the story. Escalante uses this to draw a line between homophobia and machismo. We see how those two and self-hatred, and repression can all be linked to religious beliefs.
Cinema As A Form Of Protest
Aside from critiquing colonial ideals, Latin American horror cinema also uses the genre as a protest against contemporary issues. Some directors dedicate their whole directorial careers to bringing awareness to hushed history. Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante is the most prominent one within Latin America. Out of his four feature films, all have aggressively protested the Guatemalan government’s actions and or the status quo. Two of which, La Llorona (2019) and Rita, are horror films and arguably the two biggest horror films to come out of Guatemala. This is thanks to companies such as Shudder, which helped bring these films to a wider audience.
It’s important to make these films easily accessible as they highlight a history that was swept under the rug. For films such as La Llorona (2019), it brings the Mayan genocide of the 1980s into full display. It not only shows the continued oppression against Indigenous people in contemporary times, but it also acts as a form of protest by bringing attention to this issue. It provides knowledge to the audience and forces the State to handle this issue head-on. This helps ensure the silent history doesn’t repeat itself in the future.
Latin American filmmakers have brought it upon themselves to highlight some major issues caused by their government through their art. In Chile, another famous horror film, The Wolf House, tackles an issue head-on. It does so by creating a suffocating and uncomfortable experience of a film. It tells a nightmarish story about how national trauma can lead to a cycle of abuse.
The fictional tale uses the real-life horrors of Colonia Dignidad. This was a settlement founded in 1961 by ex-Nazi Paul Schaefer, who had to flee Germany due to his pedophile actions. In Chile, he created the colony and went completely off the grid. There is evidence he was working with the country’s dictator, Augusto Pinochet. This is the backdrop utilized by directors Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal Leó. They used the medium in order the highlight some of the horrendous history that otherwise would not have been widely discussed.
But because Latin horror is creating political art, governments such as Venezuela’s ban certain films. This is the case to Flavio Pedota’s Infección. This is a zombie-like film about an epidemic outbreak that infects the country of Venezuela. It’s in line with Argentina’s When Evil Lurks, where a father must find his son in a world where the infected population creates havoc, destruction, and bloodshed. While the film never explicitly states this, there’s an underlying message of revolution. In order to defeat the evil happening within Venezuela, we must come together as a whole to overthrow it.
The Flavor Of Latin American Horror Cinema
I’ve been on my Latin American film journey for a little over five years by this point. It’s been an interesting ride coming across media from countries I’ve had little knowledge about. And it’s been rewarding learning about all the different cultures, experiences, and communities that make up Latin America. While there are common factors between the countries, it’s clear that we are not a monolith. Each country comes with its uniqueness that I appreciate dearly.
And just like horror films within the United States, not every horror film is going to be overt in its political themes. But it is important to know, the genre will always be inherently political. When it comes to Latin American horror films, a lot of their films are obvious in their stance. A lot of these filmmakers use their art to fight oppression because there are people who want to erase our history and silence our voices. Latin American horror, and I’m including films made by Latinos born in the US, continues to use their voice. We’re not going down quietly, and we’re not going down without a fight. Above all else, these films are a great reminder que seguimos aquí. Don’t sleep on Latin American horror cinema.
Categorized:Editorials Horror En Espanol
