Huesera

This should not be categorized as a horror movie. You can see from other reviews that people are upset at their expectations not being met. Although it does have some horror-like scares, it is a different experience altogether, more of a character study. However, the way that the story unfolds requires patience and an open mind. There are some allegorical elements that are not explicitly made clear in the movie. This could lead to some viewers feeling like the story leaves too many details unexplained. I thought it was well-written and gave an interesting look into the experience of a young Mexican woman dealing with the limited options imposed on her by family and society. The few supernatural elements sprinkled in are a smaller part of the story, which is mostly a psychological drama. I ended up liking the main character, so that influenced my enjoyment of the film, but not every viewer is going to understand or support her choices.

Boring and irritating are the words that can resume this movie perfectly.

Maybe my disappointment came from the high expectation I had with this one. Anyway, it is what it is.

All characters are unpleasant, even the children. The pace, the bad choice of giving the viewer information drop to drop just to make the length longer... I barely endured it - I needed to pause three times to check how long left to finish.

The main problem is that the film had big ambitions but failed to achieve them. It focuses a lot on symbolism but, in the end, leaves so many elements loose here and there that the message arrived with noise, interfering with the understanding.

Not to mention the quality of a big part of the production. Frankly, some scenes seem to be picked off some unfunny comic sketch.

In 1929, Virginia Woolf argued that centuries of calcified gender roles and financial disparity had prevented women from realizing their true potential. To become whole, she thought they needed agency, control over their own lives that she expressed in the idea of "a room of her own."

For Woolf, that room was her own writing garret in a house she shared with her husband. For Valeria, the heroine of this movie, it is the craft room in the apartment she shares with her husband, Raul. That room is where she makes the furniture she sells for a living.

Valeria's room is the first thing she has to give up when she becomes pregnant. The next is apparently anything she is entitled to say or think about her own body, which is what we see as her husband and family decide what is best for her without even acknowledging that she is in the room. And so develops the theme of the movie.

Not all women want children. They may love them and want what is best for them, but they know that they don't what to take care of them. They also may not be attracted to or want to love a man.

The idea of being voluntarily childless and with another is hard enough in the US, but almost impossible in a place like Mexico where gender roles are more deeply defined. Valeria CAN'T be the woman Raul and her family want her to be, even if she wants to be. Her struggle to please them makes her feel like her very bones are breaking.

This movie uses the Mexican legend of "La Huesera" to tell women to embrace who they are. La Huesera is a spirit who collects wolf bones. When she has enough bones, she calls the wolf's spirit to come back to inhibit them. When the wolf does, they both run free.

In this movie, Valeria has to make hard choices to run free. But she does.

The movie isn't a horror movie. It's a parable about accepting yourself as you are, no matter what the cost is.

This movie is lost between trying to create, horror, and a female empowering movie about motherhood. Sadly, is none of them. Instead we get an annoying and irresponsible 30yo lady who at the beginning wants to be a mother, the. Regrets it because when she was young she drop a baby to whom nothing happened. She hallucinates strange hunting images in an attempt to stop her pregnancy(?). It's hard to care about her journey when all she does is avoid responsibility and constantly cries to make herself look like the victim. I laughed at the dumb dialogue and stupid decisions that everyone makes. This is lost film that doesn't know what it wants to be. Even if it attempts to be political, which is not, is just an immature person who doesn't what she wants.

Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022) is a Mexican horror movie that I recently watched on Shudder. The storyline follows a young lady with a checkered past who has settled down with a good man and decided it's time to have a baby and start a family. Unfortunately, some things from her past may come back to haunt her and spoil her plans.

This movie is directed by Michelle Garza Cervera (Mexico Barbaro 2) and stars Natalia Solián (Red Shoes), Alfonso Dosal (Narcos: Mexico), Mayra Batalla (Prayers for the Stolen), Sonia Couoh (Potosi) and Mercedes Hernández (Identifying Features).

The storyline for this movie is fairly straightforward but well executed. The acting is very good, the settings are well selected and the story is well paced. The horror elements have great sound effects and some worthwhile open wounds that make you cringe. The last 15 minutes of the movie does a great job flipping on its head and contains fantastic horror elements. The people at the end of this movie are very creepy and perfectly executed...though I wish the movie got there faster. I also wish they dug a little deeper into the main character's past and into the things she needed to do to survive.

Overall, this movie is very average with a few worthwhile horror elements. I would score this a 5.5-6/10 and strongly recommend it.