Satanic Hispanics

After raiding a safe house, a group of detectives questions the sole survivor of the incident about his past and the others at the location with him launching him into stories about the participants.

The Good Stor(ies): El Vampiro-Stuck outside on daylight savings, a self-centered vampier unaware of the situation races against time and other distractions in the city to return to safety. This was a massively entertaining and hysterical segment. The goofiness and absurdity of the situations is matched by the physically intense situations that showcase how hilarious the whole thing is as the gags on display here prove to be clever, unique, and pulled off quite well. It's all due to his inherent stupidity that makes the situation endearing more than aggravating, and while the time limit he finds himself under disappears from the story to allow for some jokes it all comes together in the end to make this a highlight segment.

The Hammer of Zanzibar-Meeting up with an old flame, a man reveals that their past exploits have awakened a malicious being that has killed their friends and needs to be taken down before it's too late. This was an overall decent idea but doesn't have much else going for it. The central premise here has some fun times involving the mythical figures and their powers is a highly enjoyable storyline that has such an involved setup it's rushed through due to the unorthodox structure. This one really should've been a regular feature due to the kind of lore and backstory that's at play, especially since this one looks cheap and cheesy when it really shouldn't so it's got a lot to like even with some issues involved.

The Bad Stor(ies): Tambien Lo Vi-Trying to prepare for an upcoming tournament, a man finds his focus challenged by the supposedly haunted location he stays at to help him practice. For the most part, this was a pretty bland and uneventful start to this film. The core concept involving the inadvertent discovery of the gateway into another dimension and the resultant shocks that come about when encountering the spirits prove to be quite fun, but it takes way too long to get there as we're stuck with his interactions with his wife about the tournament or the pseudo-scientific nonsense about how the portal came to be which aren't all that interesting and make this feel far more dull and sluggish than it should've been.

Nahuales-Running away from an oppressive force, a man trying to carry out a clandestine operation for a shady figure to gain his freedom finds the supernatural entities he's from have caught up to him. This was a disappointing segment as it could've been a lot of fun. The inherent suspense of the situation involving the forces he's on the run from but won't show on screen gives this some intriguing work to start, and the exploits with the witch in the woods offer some gruesome visuals as this goes along. However, very little of this makes sense with the secretive nature of what's happening meaning nothing is spelled out and it's hard to know who's on what side or the point behind it which does lower this significantly.

The Traveler-After raiding a safe house, a group of detectives question the sole survivor of the incident about his past and the others at the location with him. This is an intriguing start but serves as a clunky means of bringing everything together. The story itself is fine enough and provides a lot of action at the end to wrap it up in an explosion of frenzied set pieces quite nicely, but on the whole, the varying tone that arises here due to the bizarre order of the segments that goes from serious to comedy and back again is rather odd. The whole interstitial segments setting up the story to be told are troubling as well with the awkward means of bringing up the next story, making this all quite awkward overall.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

The best way to describe this one is a Latino Creepshow with one of the original directors of 1999's Blair Witch Project. Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite is narrating horror stories as a wrap around character and each features a mostly Latino cast. While it's bad, it's also not very good or scary but more of wannabe Creepshow or even Trick of Treat 2006. There's a guy who can see some weird stuff with some kind of spell, a middle aged vampire married couple, a sucubus demon lady, and Pedro from napoleon dynamite.

This is something that you can wait for streaming or cable. The horror movie season is upon us and there hopefully will be better films coming soon.

Right, well of course I had not heard about this 2023 horror movie titled "Satanic Hispanics", prior to sitting down in 2024 to watch it. I had the opportunity to do so, and with it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to give the movie a chance.

I was intrigued by the movie's cover, as it does look interesting, but I have to admit that the movie's title is just abysmal.

But had I known it was a horror anthology, I do believe I would have skipped it, as horror anthologies tend to be dubious and questionable affairs. However, with having just sat through the entire 112 minutes of it, I will say that "Satanic Hispanics" proved to be somewhat better than your average horror anthology, not great though, but adequate for what it was.

I was for the most parts unfamiliar with the cast ensemble, aside from Efren Ramirez and Greg Grunberg. And I must say that Efren Ramirez was so well-cast for the role of The Traveler in the narrative that ties the segments together, and he definitely made it well-worth sitting through this anthology. The acting performances in the various segments were good, and that certainly counted for something and made it all the more enjoyable to sit through the anthology.

"Satanic Hispanics" has some good and less good segments, as it usually goes with horror anthologies. But I guess that means there is a chance that it hits a wider audience and there might just be something for everyone to enjoy here. And while I did manage to sit through the 112 minutes that it ran for, this is hardly something that I will ever return to watch a second time.

It should be noted that the special effects in the anthology are good, and they definitely add something good to the overall impression of the segments.

My rating of "Satanic Hispanics" lands on a six out of ten stars.

A police SWAT team finds a sole survivor (Efren Ramirez) after a mass murder of Latino victims. Police detectives Arden (Greg Grunberg) and Gibbons (Sonya Eddy) are interrogating him. He claims that he needs to leave in 90 minutes or else. He starts telling them ghost stories.

The wrap around story is "The Traveler". I like it and it puts in a ticking time clock right away. The first ghost story is "Tambien Lo Vi" and I like it. I like the whole concept of the light. Quite frankly, that could be a whole horror film on its own. That's coming next from Blumhouse. The second ghost story is "El Vampiro" and it reminds me so much of "What We Do in the Shadows". Again it would work great as one of its episodes. The third ghost story is "Nahaules" and it's fine. It's a lot blood and gore and horror makeup. It's above average work, but the story isn't much. The fourth ghost story is "The Hammer of Zanzibar" and it's not my first dildo fight. It's not even the second one and that concept is getting a little derivative. It would have work so much better if this came out a few years earlier. I would have laughed out loud at the sight of it, but as it stands, I said, "Oh! They're doing that thing."

This is as good or better than most B-horrors like Creepshow and such. Being a little late to the dildo fight party cannot be blamed on them. They probably created the idea well before those others came out. As for the rest, they range from very good to good enough. That's a very good batting average.

As others have pointed out, this is a very mixed bag, a loose collection of horror tales of varying tone, ranging from one seriously creepy offering from Damien Rugna, who previously gave us the ultra-creepy Terrified, to a handful of more or less comedic stories.

Production values are topnotch. The efx are excellent in design and execution, from the Goya-esque monstrosity in Rugna's segment to various demons in the others. Casting, acting, direction, cinematography and costumes are equally good. The production designers and art directors made some interesting uses of color.

The script is a collection of unconnected one or two act shorts strung together by a storyteller wraparound. Rugna's "Tambien Lo V" stands out as the only truly scary one in the bunch, but the rest are entertaining in their own way. Think "Tales of the Darkside" with elevated production values - lightweight genre fare typical of Epic's ouevre.

Overall this is a great showcase for the directors, actors and crew. But to be honest, most of my rating is due to Rugna's contribution, because he's one of the rare directors today delivering genuine horror.