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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	2007
Country of origin:	Mexico / USA
Director:	Zev Berman
Genre:	Dull reality-horror
Starring:	Brian Presley, Rider Strong, Jake Muxworthy, Martha Higareda
Rating:	2/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452592/
Tagline:	A Sacrifice Will Be Made
Favourite line:	None worth mentioning

Got a real reputation, this, and it’s largely undeserved.

The plot:
In Mexico city, two cops sent to check out reports of a murder are searching a house, when they are taken by surprise. A gang of machete wielding thugs accost them, and slice one of them up, killing him, letting the other live so that he can tell the people who did this.
One year later, at the Texas / Mexico border, three American college sorts are out for a good time, the younger of the three lads hoping to pop his cherry with a local prostitute, the other two content to drink heavily and ogle women.
When the younger one wanders off after dropping some mushrooms, he is kidnapped, strung up and told by his fellow American captor that he is special. See, a cult of cannibalistic zealots have taken him prisoner, and soon he will serve as centre-piece for a ritual that will see them turn invisible….

Based on true events we are promised, and it’s not an outright lie, but it is stretching the truth, somewhat.
With a reputation for savagery and brutality, this was approached with considerable caution, for ultra-realism is the one thing that can get under my skin. A Serbian Film was massively distressing, as nothing portrayed was actually implausible, and I fretted that the same may be the case, here.
I needn’t have worried.
With a pacing that is punishing, by the time the meat comes, you’ll be almost catatonic, so the nastiness has very little effect.
Played out in what feels like real-time, this is a film that really wants to have it’s cake, and not so much eat it, but devour it in a feral, animalistic orgy of indulgence.
It wants to be smart and savage, and it fails on both counts.
The lens is filtered drastically, so all the colour is washed away, the contrast turned up sharply, giving everything spiky edges, adding to the impression of hyper-reality. Then, the nastiness, which is vaguely tough to watch, but nothing you haven’t already seen in Hostel or Saw before.
But it’s the contradiction that troubles. The makers want you to believe that this actually took place, want you to buy into the world they are creating, but then they fill the screen with stereotypes that are certainly offensive, and verging on the nationalist (it’s not racism, for Mexicans are not a race).
According to this film, every Mexican male is a deluded, thick as whale blubber, machete-wielding, bloodthirsty cunt, who would slit your throat as quick as look at you.
Every Mexican woman is a raven haired seductress, who uses her body to lure unsuspecting, dim-witted Americans – and they are dim, these guys – to their death.
I found it massively infuriating, and it nearly had me reaching for the off switch.
Coupled with that, the three lead characters – they are American, so they are more important than the others – are absolutely unlikeable. Narcissistic, self-regarding, arrogant motherfuckers who deserve, perhaps not death, but certainly some form of physical mutilation, to bring them down a peg or two.
I’d avoid, if I were you.