Pregnancy as body horror and looming motherhood as psychological unease have been a rich vein for the genre for decades, from Alice Lowe’s Prevenge and Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook to Cronenberg’s The Brood and The Fly. Michelle Garza Cervera’s thematically-taut, deliberately-paced debut feature adds another worthy entry to that eerie pantheon. Mexican horror Huesera: The Bone Woman marries social and supernatural dread in subtly engrossing fashion, although broken-bone traumatophobes will probably want to give this one a very wide berth.
Even before the spectral terror begins, when we are first introduced to Valeria (Natalia Solián) taking part in a local fertility ritual, Huesera already exudes an uncomfortable air. Once she receives the news of a positive pregnancy, the veneer of domestic normalcy crumbles to reveal a once wistfully rich life broken apart to fit the cage of social, family, and patriarchal expectations. Flashbacks and the film’s naturalistic dynamics gradually contrast Valeria’s current corralled day-to-day with her many dreams, ambitions, and hobbies of before: a past of anti-authority rebel passion, a punk-rock friend circle, a love for carpentry and girlfriend Ursula, all thrust aside to fulfill the draining mold of a good daughter, subservient wife, and dutiful mother. Once a carpenter’s workshop, now the baby’s room: the titular entity couldn’t have asked for a better target to attack.
Horror fans looking for a spookfest might be disappointed, as Cervera’s approach doesn’t exactly rewrite the well-established psychological-nightmare haunting playbook. All the quick glimpses of shadowy figures, terrifying dreams bleeding into waking reality and hallucinatory scares unseen by others causing them to question her sanity that one would expect are gently laced through the domestic drama. The snap of bones through skin and visions of skittering limb-cracked forms prove to be the more effective scares, particularly given how Cervera mirrors those elements and sound design with Valeria’s escalating anxious habit of cracking her fingers. Once the child is born, Huesera’s menace really comes into its own through several heart-stopping scenes marrying postpartum depression and supernatural incursion.
The motherhood drama and implied subtext wrung from marrying those aforementioned facets is Huesera at its horror best, condemning the wider societal injustice of stripping women to nothing but childbearer while immersing the audience in Natalia Solián’s relatable anxiety and her character’s personal hell. Once black magic rituals come to the fore in the final act, one might fear that is a sign of Cervera settling for conventional genre cliches. However, the approach of communal cultural-unique exorcism and strikingly phantasmagoric vision quest (plus great creature design and impressive choreographed movement) deliver an especially memorable sequence. Huesera rides a fine line between demon horror formula and distinctly character-driven metaphor to reach a satisfying ending that will linger well after the credits.
Come for the unnerving bone-shattered terror, stay for the humanistic character dynamics and condemning canvas of domestic motherhood in Mexico City. More goosebumps eerie than jump-scare spooky yet always dramatically engrossing, Huesera: The Bone Woman’s Mexican psychological/supernatural unease is an exciting new arrival among women directors in horror.
Photo courtesy of XYZ Films
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