Happy Halloween! Five Horror Films From Latin America

Editor's Note: The films on this list and the trailers below should all be considered 18+, and viewed at your own discretion.

Meghan: I’ll be honest: I’ve never been a big fan of horror movies. In fact, I actively avoid them. There’s something that has always bothered me about watching other peoples’ (albeit fictional characters') pain as entertainment, especially at times when there is so much suffering in the world. When a movie over-uses gore or violence, to me it feels like a lazy way to shock an audience instead of surprising them in more creative ways. When I do like a horror movie, it’s usually when it uses horror as a way in to some social or political commentary, like we saw with Get Out and Parasite.

Because of all that, I’m quite unfamiliar with horror as a genre, but I was willing to have my mind changed. So I was thankful that Andrea introduced me to these five films, all from Latin America. I’m happy to say that I overcame my aversion to horror, as many of these films were genuinely entertaining, educational, and, sometimes, even enjoyable to watch.

Andrea: I’m the exact opposite of Meghan in this case: not only was I practically raised on horror films, but I write and direct them in my spare time. To paraphrase Lizzo: "I like big scares, itty bitty scares / South Korean scares, and the gritty scares / I like the witty scares with good writing / get your gore and creepy lighting."

But, thankfully for Meghan, while I do have my fair share of positively nasty favorites, it’s actually really easy to pick entertaining and elegant horror films from Latin America. Most horror films from south of the United States border use the genre as a tool for a greater message — which is not surprising when we look at the cultures of storytelling throughout South and Central America. From pre-Columbian oral histories to Magical Realism, there is often an element of the fabulous or supernatural in Latinx literary traditions.

In many of the films on this list, that rich narrative heritage combines with an often violence-fraught reality. They take on the plagues of Latinx society to create gritty, surreal portraits of their communities. These films are asking us not to be scared of the monsters in our closet — but instead, the monsters inside of us.

Tigers Are Not Afraid (2019), Mexico
Meghan: Tigers Are Not Afraid was my favorite film on this list for a few reasons. One, the stark violence in the film felt justified because everything that happened to these kids are things that really could happen to street children around the world. The dark fairy tale elements were little glimpses into how a child might try to process such terrifying events at a young age. Death is all around them. The horror in this movie comes from real-world situations, like seeing an adult aim a gun at a child and shoot, or seeing a child, hands shaking, pick up a gun and shoot it to try and save his friends.

Seeing this violent world of the drug wars through the eyes of children makes it even more horrific. I’m always impressed when a movie uses children as main characters, and this director does an incredible job at getting well-rounded performances from the children. There were a number of striking visuals, like when the children are surrounding a burning grand piano in the dark, engulfed in flames. The children barely noticed, but I will remember that for a long time.

Andrea: I was lucky enough to catch this film at the Boston Underground Film Festival, our hometown horror, sci-fi and fantasy film festival, back in 2018. It was just before the film secured distribution… and right after it was announced that director Issa López would be working on her next film, a werewolf western, with the maestro Guillermo del Toro. While that announcement was enough to get my butt in the seat, it was the incredible beauty and passion of the film that made me a devoted fan.

Like many of the films on this list Tigers Are Not Afraid digs into a very real problem — the violence surrounding street children in Mexico — and creates a fantastical world that gets at the heart of the issue. Not only does the film use the horror genre to expand on the emotions and fears inherent to the story, but it does it with an excellent script and some really remarkable acting from a surprisingly young cast.

La Llorona (2019), Guatemala
Meghan: This movie had few of the typical tropes, like gore or jump scares, that usually make me walk out of horror movies. Instead, La Llorona focuses on the growing tension between characters and the claustrophobia created by political protests. It’s a smart way to explore the painful after-effects of a country’s genocide of indigenous people, by focusing on the family of the former dictator. The gender dynamics are interesting, as there are hints of sexual exploitation of the housekeepers by the former dictator. For that reason, it’s powerful to see much of the events in the film from the perspective of his daughter and granddaughter, and the indigenous housekeepers.

The ultimate question of the film to me — which I didn’t expect from a horror film — is what happens when a government doesn’t reckon with past injustices? This film suggests that, if they're not properly reconciled and given space to heal, the past will inevitably come back to haunt us.

Andrea: Categorizing 2019’s La Llorona as horror may feel like a bit of a stretch. While the contents are certainly horrific, the film is a bit more based in social justice than we commonly see. That said, the film solidly anchors itself between a mythical ghost story and an earthly tale of revenge, using political unrest and hinting at magic to create a creeping dread.

But while the actual content of this film may be best described as horror-adjacent, the story behind it makes this a vital film. The film looks back on the holocausto silencioso or Silent Holocaust: a time when the Guatemalan government perpetrated a series of massacres against it’s Maya civilians, believing that its indigenous peoples were informants for the country’s guerilla forces. It’s also worth noting that not only was the Guatemalan government at the time backed by the U.S., but also that multiple U.S. military officials were aware of their practices of torture and mass executions.

As with the majority of films on this list, La Llorona digs into the very real horrors of humanity, accentuating them with the supernatural. It’s a combination that we might not be used to in our horror fare, but one that produces a truly excellent film.

Casa Muda [The Silent House] (2010), Uruguay
Meghan: First of all, I am very creeped out that this film was inspired by true events. La Casa Muda feels like a fairly conventional horror movie, but it’s way scarier and makes the movie more relevant to know it’s partly true. I love long takes in movies. When it’s done well, it’s one of the most immersive and powerful tools a filmmaker has. I’m thinking of recent Oscar winners like Birdman and 1917. In this case, the single take is a highly effective strategy to create oppressive horror. Sometimes the camera follows the character step-by-step and other times it’s stuck in a corner, far from the action, where we can only listen to the horrifying sounds.

Given that it was filmed in that way, I was really impressed by the eerie setting and how creepy the lighting was, especially the movement of light from lanterns, flashlights and camera bulbs. I can’t imagine that was easy to create. Something about it reminded me of A Quiet Place, which used sound — or, the lack of sound — to create incredible tension. Even the beeping of an open car door is full of tension. I imagine this would be a fun movie to see in the movie theater, with a full audience to react to all of the surprises. When you watch, make sure to stick around for the post-credits scene.

Andrea: So, I love your typical horror movie — monsters, ghosts, rising tension — but I will be the first to admit that I am the biggest baby about jump scares. Despite my tendency to shriek at scares, I had to include a more conventional horror movie on this list. But if I was going to do it, I was going to make sure it was one of the most effective examples of the genre I’ve seen. And Casa Muda is that.

The story may already be familiar to you: it was remade as Silent House with Elizabeth Olsen in 2010. But while the American version was almost universally panned, it’s predecessor manages to deliver scares through a deceptively simple storyline: when a father and daughter work to fix a dilapidated house, they soon find themselves terrorized by an unknown entity. The film leads you down a trail rife with red herrings, surprises and psychological twists that you won’t see coming — pretty impressive for a film that was made with only $6,000!

El Páramo [The Squad] (2011), Colombia
Meghan: I didn’t connect with El Páramo as much as the others, although it’s a well-made and tense film. That may be because I don’t usually enjoy dark thrillers as much as some people. Compared to the other films on this list, I felt like it's lacking a greater message other than creating paranoia. It's dark and gritty, but for me to enjoy a horror movie it needs more than that. It gets more interesting when the group of soldiers think they discover traces of magic and believe the mysterious woman is a witch, but that doesn't really go anywhere.

I appreciated the atmospheric music and the foggy mountainside setting — it must have been quite a challenge to film there. Towards the end it also becomes more of a survival movie, where different characters are put in a perilous situation and we get to see how they react. If psychological thrillers are your thing, you’ll enjoy this.

Andrea: When I was eight, my dad gave me a used copy of Lord of The Flies. I loved the book, and since then, I’ve had a predilection for stories that turn their light on the darker elements of humanity. El Páramo might not have the same desolate message as Lord of the Flies, but it shares a very similar view of humanity. As we watch the soldiers of the titular squad fall to pieces in the foggy hillsides of Columbia, it becomes terribly clear that they can’t escape the innate feral nature from which all humanity stems.

But while the film carries this oft-covered message at its core, it also branches into topics that are more specific to the Latinx community: discrimination and mistrust toward indigenous communities, toxic masculinity, and misogyny. And its setting — a military base abandoned after a guerilla attack — speaks to the ongoing Colombian conflict. While the film is supremely tense and morbid, it does have its growing pains; the directorial debut of Jaime Osorio Marquz, it does sometimes suffer for its lack of focus.

Note: El Páramo is listed as a "Family" movie on YouTube. It is not, and parental guidance is highly suggested.

Verónica (2017), Mexico
Meghan: The choice to make a film in all black-and-white is a bold one. In this case, it works because it forces you to pay closer attention to the characters’ emotions, and gives the whole story a darker feel. In every frame of Verónica large parts of the screen are hidden from view because of shadows and darkness. Maybe that’s how Verónica sees the world?

As Verónica and the psychologist start to transfer and project their traumatic pasts on each other, the story plays with reality and makes you question whether what you’re seeing is happening at all. Who is really telling this story? It’s a subtle movie until the end, as most of the story is told through the growing tension between the two women. Maybe it’s because I don’t watch a lot of movies like this, but I was actually genuinely shocked by the twist at the end.

Andrea: Not to be confused with the Spanish film of the same name and year about Ouija-wielding teens, Mexico’s Verónica is a psycho-sexual horror tale that delves into how damaging child abuse can be.

The film watches as an unnamed psychologist and her patient, the titular Verónica, begin their work together. Neither are fully whole — while Verónica is hostile, aggressive, and over-sexed, the psychologist seems to be suffering from extreme anxiety herself. These conflicts create a whirlpool of tense belligerence that seems to only push each woman further into her own mind.

Beside being an intense thriller, Verónica is also an compelling look at how countries outside the U.S. treat and think about sexuality and sensuality. While Hollywood has a tendency to use sex as a reward, a bargaining chip, or a character’s downfall, this film — and many other foreign films — looks at the characters’ sexuality as a curious multitude woven through their thoughts and actions.