Satanic Hispanics

 A horror anthology tied together by very little more than an ethnicity, Satanic Hispanics brings together five Latin-American directors to tell some scary stories. The results vary wildly, but that, as we keep finding out again and again, comes with the territory.

 The first chapter - The Traveller, directed by Mike Mendez - introduces the framing device: the police raid a derelict house in El Paso to find dozens of dead bodies in what looks like a cartel killing. The lone survivor, known as The Traveler (Efren Ramirez) is taken into custody, where he's questioned by two detectives (Greg Grunberg and Sonya Eddy). As the movie progresses The Traveler admits that he's immortal, and being hunted down by death itself. And, in response to a question or something that jogs his memory, he tells the different stories that comprise the film.
 It really doesn't get much to do until the last chapter, and its dialog is severely overwritten - but Ramirez is pretty good, and it gets one really good visual gag in at the beginning.

 This fading year's horror MVP Demián Rugna helms the second segment, También lo Vi (I saw it too), and it's easily the best story in the film. No contest. It's about a Rubik's-cube-obsessed shut-in (Demián Salomón) who's unwittingly devised a way to open a door to the land of the dead, with foreseeably catastrophic results. Visually and conceptually it feels like it could fit in Rugna's Aterrados (itself a bit of an anthology film), but this one's got a lighter tone and more of an impish sense of fun. Plus one hell of an effective jump scare and some excellent effects and cinematography. Shame they couldn't think of a good ending for it.

 Eduardo Sánchez is up next, and he basically does a cute, goofy and kind of lame sitcom skit about a vampire (Hemky Madera) whose night is ruined when he discovers he got daylight savings time wrong. There's some hijinks with the police, passersby, and his long-suffering vampire girlfriend (Patricia Velasquez) as he tries to make it home before dawn - some good gags, but the humor is, in general, just way too broad, and doesn't compare at all well to (possible) inspirations What We Do In The Shadows or Woody Allen's 'Count Dracula'. It lands with a solid punchline, at least.

Then it's Gigi Saul Guerrero's turn, an interminable bit about a would-be CIA informant (Ari Gallegos) who pissed off a shape-shifting tribe's shaman (Gabriela Ruíz) and suffers the consequences. It's a weird shrug of a story that doesn't go anywhere. Maybe I just didn't get it; Have to say, though, that I found the Shaman's long-ass monologue to be gratingly pretentious bullshit.
 I took it to be a cautionary tale about pissing off ancient shapeshifting shamans. Turns out it's a bad idea: you'll end up making them tear off their cheeks.

 The last story is Alejandro Brugués's The Hammer of Zanzibar, another overtly comedic entry about a smartass (Jonah Ray!) who confronts a deadly curse that's set a deadly demon against him. It's buoyed by a likeable cast, some inventiveness and a lot of energy, but unfortunately the humor is... well, not as corny as in Sanchez's entry, but just as broad, and really, really juvenile. Not just in content but in form, as it kind of feels like a short some talented but slightly obnoxious film school kids would put together in their spare time. At least they clearly had a good time making it.

 Things finish up nicely as the wraparound ends with a confrontation between Death and The Traveler as the gaunt deity - a very cool practical effects creation - strides into the police precinct like some sort of supernatural terminator.

 Despite the unevenness and a terminal lack of cohesiveness, the film would be worth a watch just for Rugna's entry alone- but even if the rest don't add up to much, they're mostly entertaining.

V/H/S/85

 Ever since the V/H/S anthology series of movies found a new home over at Shudder, they've been released at a yearly schedule, gotten a bit better at maintaining the found-footage gimmick, and they've gotten a year appended to the title that works as a theme - more a suggestion than a mandate, but it adds some color to each installment.

 The latest film in the franchise takes aim at 1985 - stylistically, if nothing else; Don't expect any insights about the Regan era, and the few references to the time period feel pretty forced.

 Mike P. Nelson kicks things of with your standard bunch of loud, horny people heading to a remote lake to get killed. They're not quite as repellent as they could have been in slasher-movie terms, so it's a little upsetting once they start getting shot to pieces.

 It takes its time to get to the fireworks factory, but things get memorably gruesome once a hidden sniper starts picking them off. There's a fun, very silly supernatural twist later on, but it kind of fizzles out without a real resolution. Or... does it?

 Then we jump to the film's weakest link, as writer/director Gigi Saul Guerrero takes us through a survival story about a film operator and his rescue team trying to escape a tall building after a nasty quake in Mexico City caves in a broadcast studio. As they make their way ever downwards, they discover a mythical threat amongst the bones of the city. It's got some gore and a couple of cool images, and the found footage angle does add a lot of immediacy to their predicament... but overall I thought this was missed opportunity.

 I did find it funny that it's got a comedy asshole Argentine dude, a trope I've noticed pop up mainly in Spanish films (Rec 2 and Sleep Tight come to mind); Other Latin peoples really don't like us, it seems.

 TKNOGD follows, directed by Natasha Kermani off a script by Zoe Cooper; It's a filmed performance art piece/one-woman-show where the speaker (Chivonne Michelle) invokes the god of technology using some silly VR gear. It's a short, not very interesting segment that builds towards an entirely predictable but satisfying and darkly humorous ending - and one of the most memorable bits of bloody mayhem in an already very gory movie. It was a struggle not to spoil its final shot as the header image for this review, but it deserves to be seen with fresh eyes. There's a joke in there somewhere, but I'm to lazy to go rooting around for it.

 Ambrosia marks the return of Mike P. Nelson with a fun little story about a family reunion that turns to be, surprise surprise, a lot darker than it seems. To-the-point, inventive, and hugely satisfying.

 For the last segment Scott Derrickson makes his debut in the series with the agreeably nasty Dreamkill. The story (co-written with Derrickson's regular writing partner C. Robert Cargill) follows a detective (Freddy Rodriguez) and his 'forensic videographer' (James Ransone) investigating a series of grisly murders; The twist is that the police has received videotapes chronicling the murders from the killer's point of view... three days before each killing.

 It's a simple story, constrained a little by the short running time, but very effective. By far the most impressive looking short of the bunch (and the only one not in a 4:3 ratio), it uses a variety of film stocks and soundscapes to give it a dreamlike feel. The filmed murders are very, very nasty Giallo-inspired fever dreams. In one a a straight razor reprises its role from Un Chien Andalou, another one overlays a brutal slashdown with Throbbing Gristle's Hamburger Lady to channel a version of Skinamarink where things actually happen.

 And it ends with a bang. Many, many bangs. There's so much to like here.

 The fifth or sixth story, depending on how you're counting, is V/H/S series vet Richard Bruckner's framing device which takes the form of a cheesy TV documentary chronicling a group of university scientists studying some sort of alien shape-shifting life-form; They keep it locked in a room watching non-stop TV shows.

 The documentary elements - especially the host - are spot-on, and it does build some tension as we get fed scraps of information in between the other stories. But it's a little too overblown for what ends up being the pay-off; the heavily foreshadowed massacre it's been heading towards is pretty tame compared to the shit that took place on most of the shorts. Thankfully it's all capped with a gloriously goofy punchline.

 As a send-off things wrap up with the standard V/H/S cheesy song, in this case a (pretty funny!) eighties-inspired pop number that riffs on the events of the movie.

 If I have to be objective, V/H/S/85 is messy, uneven, and the found-footage nature combined with the VHS conceit and low budget means that a lot of it looks like ass. But as ever with this series there's a lot to like, with a couple of honest-to-god kick-ass segments. Here's looking forward to next year's tape.