Featured Photo by IMDb
Story by Larry Rincon
September is almost over, and the spooky season draws near. With a variety of horror films that were released this month, one in particular caught my attention.
“Satanic Hispanics” was released in theaters on Sept. 14. The film isn’t your typical feature. While most films have one director, this one has five different Latin directors to tell different stories based on Latin culture.
While I was excited to see the horror of Latino myths and legends come to life, this movie started off catching my attention and quickly lost it within the first fifteen minutes.
The film is structured into different chapters starting with “Chapter One: The Traveler.”
This first chapter sets the stage for the entire film. An immortal man named the Traveler is the only person alive after twenty seven people were murdered in a house in El Paso, Texas. He tells the police that if they don’t let him go they will all die in an hour.
From there there are four different stories the man shares in order to get released by the police.
In the story “Yo Tambien Lo Vi,” a man performs a ritual with his flashlight revealing the existence of dead entities. He used his Rubik’s Cube solving patterns based on the colors of a window in his home to unlock the door between the living and the dead. The story comes full circle as the man sees himself performing the ritual revealing he himself is now dead.
The police, of course, think the Traveler is crazy, and from there he tells them the next few stories. They are all just as fantastical as the first.
In “El Vampiro,” a vampire living in the modern world with the occasional marriage issue tries to get back home before the sun comes up the night of Halloween. The only thing noteworthy is the “Twilight” reference. Except this time Bella doesn’t get out alive, and Bella is a teenage boy dressed as a clown.
When this story started I believed I was watching a completely different movie even though I knew this film was an anthology.
In the chapter called “Nahuales,” a man working with the CIA is caught and taken by a group of people called Nahuales. The Nahuales in Mesoamerican culture are shapeshifters who can transform into animals. It was believed that people had connections to certain animals like their spirit animal or guardian animal and these people could turn into them.
Chapter Five didn’t have a name at first and was by far the weirdest story. A man named Malcolm is being attacked by some evil creature, and the only thing that can kill the creature is something called the Hammer of Zanzibar. The whole story is a big sex joke, and it was hard to take this movie seriously by this point.
The ending chapter was called “San La Muerte.” The thing the Traveler has been warning the police about makes its way to the station. It kills everything in its path, but the Traveler manages to escape.
At the very end of the film, the Traveler steals a car, speeds down the roads, until another cop pulls him over, and the whole process of running from death and threatening the safety of others begins again.
In all honesty, the story was confusing, and the subtitles were distracting.
The worst part is that the jump scares were either anti-climatic or just not good. They would happen and then immediately the story moves on.
The attempts at humor are based on the incompetence and ignorance of people who are on the other side of the handcuffs. When the Traveler tells the police he is from the times of the Aztecs, the white cop clinged to the fact the Traveler was an immigrant instead of worrying about the matter of life and death the Traveler is trying to warn them about.
This movie is like a conversation with the one weird uncle that everyone has. You have no idea what is going on.
If you’re into bad and cringe movies then this might be something to watch. I can not really recommend it because it just wasn’t what I was hoping for. The concept and idea was amazing, but unfortunately the execution just wasn’t enough.
“Satanic Hispanics” is not a horror movie, but a comedy that did not make me laugh.
To contact Lifestyles Editor Destiny Mizell, email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com. For more news, visit www.mtsusidelines.com, or follow us on Facebook at MTSU Sidelines or on X at @MTSUSidelines.
