Shudder Saturday: Rita (2024)

Okay, we need to get one thing clear from the very beginning here. Rita isn't a traditional horror form. In fact, I would agree with people who wouldn't consider it a horror film at all, despite the fact that the real event it is based on, and what is shown here in the finale, is quite horrific. This is the kind of film that I actually appreciate seeing hosted by Shudder, despite the fact that the comments from viewers inevitably include a whole lot of dismissals from those who wanted a straightforward horror movie. 

I admit, however, that I was worried when this started. It focuses on young Rita (Giuliana Santa Cruz), of course, and begins by showing her being placed in a facility alongside many other children. The children all seem to pretend they are in different factions, imagining themselves as fairies or other fantastical creatures, and the early scenes of magical realism had me very worried that I would end up watching something far too pre-occupied with showcasing the theatricality of child performers being encouraged to dress up and improvise amongst themselves. There was no need to worry though. Writer-director Jayro Bustamante (who impressed me with his previous feature, La Llorona) makes use of the childish playfulness and innocence to simply soften the edges of subject matter that might otherwise have been too bleak for many to watch.

I encourage everyone to watch Rita, first and foremost, but I then encourage everyone to type "rita guatemalan tragedy" into any decent search engine. Finding out what the film was based on, and why it needed to be made, adds another layer of appreciation, and it underlines just how well Bustamante has balanced everything. This works as a movie, as long as (once more for those at the back) you're NOT expecting any straightforward horror genre moments, but it works equally as a testament and condemnation of a major stain on the recent history of Guatemala.

While the entire cast do very good work, Santa Cruz is the focus, and she does a fantastic job. She is both vulnerable, as any child is, and yet ever-ready to fight for the safety of others. Ángela Quevedo and Alejandra Vásquez are two other children in the facility, both already trying to plan ways to fight back against a system that has put them in a very dangerous situation, and they easily hold their own alongside the young lead. The few adults throughout the movie aren't shown in a good light, but they're also portrayed by very capable actors who grit their teeth and commit to showing the horrible truth at the heart of the whole movie.

I can't say that I noticed every individual element here, which means I won't be praising the score or the editing or anything else that may deserve some extra praise. I was drawn in, almost as if taken by the hand, by the characters and the feeling of innocent playtime providing a way to process some great pain and unpleasantness. The end result is a gently-crafted piece of filmic heartbreak.

8/10

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Shudder Saturday: La Llorona (2019)

Julio Diaz is Enrqiue Monteverde, a man followed around by the apparition of death. Sometimes he knows it is there, and sometimes he doesn't. There are moments when he seems to be haunted, but there are many moments when he seems completely nonchalant about everything. Monteverde is a former dictator, having been responsible for the slaying of many native Mayans during his time of rule, and he is finally forced to appear in court, where witnesses illustrate a number of the atrocities committed in his name. The past looks as if it is reaching out a bony arm to clutch at his heart, which makes it all the more interesting when the Monteverde household takes in a new worker, Alma (María Mercedes Coroy), who seems to start off a burst of supernatural spookiness.

Directed by Jayro Bustamante, who also co-wrote the screenplay with first-timer Lisandro Sanchez, La Llorona is a smart and sensitive horror that uses some historic horror to ground a familiar tale of ghostly retribution. The biggest problem it has is that it ended up coming out in the same year as The Curse Of La Llorona. I didn't hate that film as much as some people, mainly due to my habit of being easily pleased, but it certainly wasn't good enough for me to look forward to other movies with similar titles. Thankfully, this is more in line with Pan's Labyrinth than Wan's Laboratory. Although nowhere near as fantastical and fairytale-like, it beautifully blends some very real atrocities with some solid horror genre material.

It's not all that scary though. I know that may seem completely backwards after what I have just said above, but I think it is worth warning horror fans about. La Llorona goes for a thick sense of atmosphere throughout - something that almost lays over the central characters like a woollen blanket, making things get uncomfortably warm and creeping up so far as to stifle breathing - and it maintains it impressively all the way to a fitting final scene. The horror here comes from watching people either attempt to justify or completely discard awful deeds committed by awful men.

Diaz is very good in his role, physically frail and suffering, mentally in and out of clarity, but the film is more about how others view him than how he views himself, which is through a filter allowing him to feel fine about all he has done. The people who have more to do are Margarita Kenéfic and Sabrina De La Hoz, playing, respectively, the wife and daughter of the central character. Both view the whole thing rather differently, with Kenéfic either too proud or too embarrassed to see her husband as anything other than a wrongfully-accused man who did what had to be done, and De La Hoz mentally leading herself to question more and more what she was told as a truth throughout her life. Coroy is good enough in the role of Alma, she has to stand around and be quiet while sometimes looking spooky, and Ayla-Elea Hurtado does well as the youngest member of the household, Sara, and the one who quite early on asks her mother why the internet is saying so many nasty things about her grandfather.

I can see what Bustamante and Sanchez were going for here, and there are a number of scenes that work in either standard horror visual language or in the way violent protests are shown (such as Monteverde being taken into his home while trying to avoid an angry crowd who throw bags of fake blood at him), but it's not quite as effective as it could be. I think it would have helped to either show more of the history or work in more of the here-and-now spookiness, yet the film is happy to use both elements sparingly, although both infuse every part of the movie.

It's worth your time, and another horror-tinged drama that I respect more for being defiantly aimed at adult viewers, but La Llorona misses a chance to be something absolutely great. Not by much though, not by much at all.

7/10

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